REESE   LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFQRNI 


MAR  23  1894 


ts  No 


GUIDE 


TO 


THE    KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD 


GUIDE 


TO 


THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD 


A 

of  t^e  C^fef 


BY   A.   GRATRY 
ji 

PROFESSOR    OF    MORAL   THEOLOGY    AT    THE    SORBONNE 
TRANSLATED   BY 

ABBY    LANGDON    ALGER 

WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION   BY 

WILLIAM  ROUNSEVILLE   ALGER 


(  This  Work  was  Crowned  by  the  French  Academy  ) 

f&  *„ 

i    CNJ\  -K 


BOSTOIT 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS 

1892 


Copyright,  1892, 
BY  ROBERTS  BROTHERS. 


ress: 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   TRANSLATION.  PAOE 

BY  WILLIAM  ROUNSEVILLE  ALGER      .    .    » 1-11 


first 


CHAPTER  I. 

EXPLANATORY. 

A  summary  of  the  whole  work.  Why  philosophy  begins  with  a  treatise 
on  the  knowledge  of  God,  with  the  knowledge  whereby  the  mind  of 
man  rises  to  God.  —  I.  Is  it  possible  and  necessary  to  prove  the 
existence  of  God?  Are  there  atheists? — II.  General  character  of 
the  genuine  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  —  III.  Precise  nature  of 
that  proof :  it  is  the  principal  application  of  one  of  the  two  essential 
processes  of  reason ;  it  is  the  act  and  fundamental  process  of  the  ra- 
tional and  moral  life.  The  study  of  this  proof  is  the  study  of  phi- 
losophy in  its  principle :  studied  historically,  it  is  the  basis  of  the 
history  of  philosophy ;  studied  speculatively,  it  places  the  mind  at 
the  point  where  the  roots  of  ontology,  psychology,  logic,  and  morals 
meet 13-25 

CHAPTER  II. 

PLATO'S  THEODICY. 

I.  Why  it  belonged  to  the  school  of  Socrates  to  give  to  the  antique 
world  the  laws  of  the  chief  process  of  reason,  and  to  attain  to  the 
true  philosophical  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  —  II.  Platonic  dia- 
lectic :  the  condition  for  its  exercise ;  its  point  of  support,  its  move- 
ment, its  term.  —  III.  Discussion  of  texts  from  Plato  concerning 
the  nature  of  the  dialectic  process.  — IV.  Use  which  man  should 


vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

make  of  this  divine  gift,  —  to  conquer  the  obstacle,  develop  the  sense 
of  the  immortal  and  the  divine.  —  V.  Starting-point  of  the  dialectic 
process  in  the  spectacle  of  visible  objects.  —  VI.  full  description  of 
the  process.  —  VII.  Term  of  the  process  (re'Xos  rijs  nopeias).  Two 
degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible  :  shadows  of  that  which  is,  or  divine 
phantasms :  the  Divine  Being  himself.  —  VIII.  The  idea  of  the  true 
God  as  found  in  Plato.  —  IX.  Plato  combats  the  false  application 
of  the  chief  process  of  reason,  sophistry.  —  X.  Summary  of  Plato's 
Theodicy.  —  XI.  What  Saint  Augustine,  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas, 
Bossuet,  and  Thomassin  think  of  the  Platonic  doctrine  .  .  .  26-61 

CHAPTER   III. 
ARISTOTLE'S  THEODICY. 

I.  Relations  between  Plato  and  Aristotle.  —  II.  Proof  of  the  existence 
of  God  given  by  Aristotle  and  summed  up  by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas. 
—  III.  Discussion  of  that  proof.  Its  logical  value  is  doubtful  in  the 
form  in  which  it  is  given.  —  IV.  The  result  of  Aristotle's  Theodicy  : 
an  immutable  essence ;  a  principle  whose  essence  is  very  act :  God 
pure  act;  how  the  motionless  motor  moves;  attraction  of  the  desir- 
able and  intelligible;  God  is  an  eternal  and  perfect  living  being, 
Goodness,  Thought,  and  Life.  —  That  which  is  in  us  is  finite,  in  God 
exists  infinitely.  —  V.  Aristotle's  error  in  regard  to  the  eternity  of 
the  universe.  — VI.  God's  relation  to  the  world,  according  to  Aris- 
totle. —  VII.  Summary  of  Aristotle's  Theodicy. —  VIII.  Distinction 
between  the  two  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible.  —  IX.  Aristotle's 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God  is  at  bottom  precisely  the  same  as  that 
of  Descartes.  Decision  in  regard  to  Aristotle 62-94 

CHAPTER  IV. 
SAINT  AUGDSTINE'S  THEODICY. 

I.  Saint  Augustine's  opinion  of  philosophy.  — II.  Analogy  and  differ- 
ence between  Plato  and  Saint  Augustine  :  Quidqmd  a  Platone  dicitur, 
vivit  in  Augustino.  —  III.  What  Saint  Augustine  sees  in  Plato ; 
what  he  adds  to  him.  —  IV.  Theory  of  the  method  which  lifts  us  to 
God  and  the  truth,  according  to  Saint  Augustine  (gradus  ad  immor- 
talia  faciendux) . —  V.  Elaboration  of  what  precedes.  Saint  Augus- 
tine more  exact  than  Plato  in  regard  to  the  theory  of  the  philosophical 
method  which  proves  God. — VI.  Great  superiority  of  Saint  Au- 
gustine over  Plato  concerning  the  theory  of  the  divine  sense,  prin- 
ciple of  the  moral  and  intellectual  impulse  towards  God.  —  VII.  The 


CONTENTS.  vii 

PAGE 

final  term  attained  by  reason,  when  God  lifts  it  to  himself  (Ratio 
perveniens  ad  Jinem  suuni).  —  VIII.  Results  of  Saint  Augustine's 
philosophical  method.  Idea  of  the  infinite ;  doctrine  of  the  creation. 
—  IX.  Journey  of  reason  towards  God,  according  to  Saint  Augus- 
tine :  two  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible.  —  X.  Conclusion :  the 
Temple ;  two  ways  of  regarding  it 95-142 

CHAPTER  V. 

SAINT  ANSELM'S  THEODICY. 

I.  General  sense  of  Saint  Anselm's  philosophical  works.  —  II.  What 
is  Saint  Anselm's  argument  ?  —  III.  Fuller  analysis  of  that  argu- 
ment. — IV.  How  far  reason  can  go,  according  to  Saint  Anselm  143-157 

CHAPTER  VI. 

SAINT   THOMAS   AQUINAS*   THEODICY. 

I.  Relations  between  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Saint  Augustine.  — 
II.  Literal  translation  of  a  Question  by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  which 
is  an  abridged  treatise  on  the  existence  of  God :  De  Deo  an  Dem  sit 
(Sum.  Theol.  la.  q.  11).  —  III.  Discussion  of  this  chapter  from 
Saint  Thomas.  —  IV.  Theory  of  the  method  which  lifts  our  mind  to 
God,  according  to  Saint  Thomas  :  1.  The  starting-point  in  the  spec- 
tacle of  created  beings ;  2.  The  process,  which  takes  three  names : 
via  causalitatis,  via  eminently  vel  excellentice,  via  negationis  vel  re- 
motionis  ;  3.  The  moral  obstacle  :  veritatem  Dei  in.  injustitia  detinent. 
—  V.  Distinction  between  the  two  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible : 
visio  speculariSy  visio  per  essentiam.  Distinction  in  the  higher  of  the 
two  degrees  :  light  of  grace,  in  via  videntium  ;  light  of  glory,  in  pa- 
tria  mdentium. —  VI.  Conclusion 158-184 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THEODICY   OF   THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY. 

Philosophic  character  of  the  seventeenth  century :  unity  of  mind  of  its 
great  men ;  unity  of  process. 

DESCARTES. 

I.  His  philosophical  character.  —  II.  His  starting-point  to  prove  the 
existence  of  God :  unity  of  his  two  proofs.  —  III.  Double  character 
of  the  true  proof,  both  rational  and  experimental.  —  IV.  Objective 


viii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

reality  of  the  idea  of  God,  according  to  Descartes  :  this  idea  is  a  cer- 
tain vision  of  God.  This  vision  is  indirect :  I  possess  it  by  the  same 
faculty  by  which  I  know  myself.  It  is  the  IMAGE  of  a  genuine  and 
immutable  nature.  That  image  is  only  that  which  we  see  when  the 
mind  conceives,  judges,  or  reasons.  —  V.  How  Descartes'  two  proofs 
are  inseparable  and  form  but  one. — VI.  The  process  of  Descartes 
does  not  differ  from  the  dialectic  of  Plato.  —  VII.  Hiatus  in  the 
ideas  of  Descartes,  or  at  least  in  his  work.  Danger  of  Cartesianism 
ill  understood.  —  Conclusion.  To  distinguish  between,  but  not  to 
separate,  the  two  orders  of  the  divine  intelligible. 

PASCAL. 

I.  Part  played  by  Pascal  considered  as  a  philosopher.  —  II.  His  scep- 
ticism is  not  genuine  scepticism,  any  more  than  is  Descartes'  doubt. 
He  is  especially  averse  to  isolated  reason.  —  III.  Pascal's  doctrine 
concerning  the  rational  knowledge  of  God.  Pascal's  deficiency. 
—  Conclusion.  2// 

MALEBRANCHE. 

I.  Merit  of  Malebranche.  Solid  side  of  his  doctrine.  —  II.  Male- 
branche's  practical  and  habitual  method.  —  III.  How  he  proves  the 
existence  of  God.  —  IV.  Malebranche  confounds  the  two  orders  of 
the  divine  intelligible.  This  is  his  error.  "*-*J 

FENELON. 

I.  Fenelon's  philosophical  character.  His  superiority.  —  II.  Fenelon 
corrects  the  exclusive  points  of  view  of  Pascal  and  Malebranche. 
His  analysis  of  reason,  the  best  that  has  been  made,  is  at  the  same 
time  the  most  beautiful  of  the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God.  — 
III.  Profound  comparison  by  which  Fenelon  explains  the  nature  of 
ideas  and  reason :  his  superiority  over  Malebranche.  —  IV.  His  the- 
ory of  the  process  by  which  our  reason  rises  to  God.  —  Conclusion. 

PETAU  AND  THOMASSIN. 

I.  Analysis  of  an  important  chapter  by  Petau,  in  which  he  explains 
his  method  of  demonstrative  theology.  —  II.  Philosophical  character 
of  Thomassin.  —  III.  Starting-point  of  the  process  which  proves 
God,  according  to  Thomassin.  —  IV.  Profoundly  original  theory 
given  by  Thomassin  in  regard  to  what  has  been  called  the  innate 
idea  of  God.  —  V.  Continuation  of  that  theory.  — VI.  Remarks  on 
the  starting-point  of  the  process  which  lifts  our  mind  to  God. — 
VII.  Theory  of  that  process.  Thomassin's  excess  of  tolerance  in 
regard  to  Neo-Platonism.  —  VIII.  Clear  distinction  between  the 
two  regions  of  the  divine  intelligible. 


CONTENTS. 


BOSSUET. 

PAGE 

I.  Bossuet's  philosophical  character.  —  II.  Relations  between  the 
question  of  Quietism  and  the  philosophic  proof  of  the  existence  of 
God.  —  III.  God  proved  by  the  spectacle  of  nature  and  by  his  op- 
erations in  us.  —  IV.  God  proved  by  his  idea  taken  in  itself.  — 
V.  Description  of  the  practical  process  which  lifts  us  to  God.  THE 
HIDDEN  SPRING.  The  other  light.  jL7  L 

LEIBNITZ. 

I.  Philosophical  character  of  Leibnitz.  His  chief  title  to  glory.  — 
II.  Did  Leibnitz  understand  the  relation  between  the  infinitesimal 
process  and  the  corresponding  logical  process  ?  —  III.  Leibnitz  re- 
gards as  good  almost  all  the  means  which  have  been  employed  to 
prove  the  existence  of  God.  He  thinks  he  has  reduced  the  proof  of 
the  existence  of  God  to  mathematic  precision.  He  remoulds  Saint 
Anselm's  proof. — IV.  Summary  of  the  Theodicy  of  Leibnitz. — 
V.  Analogy  between  his  Theodicy  and  his  geometry.  Conclusion  185-303 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ON   THE   ATTRIBUTES   OF   GOD. 

I.  The  true  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  also  gives  us  the  attributes 
of  God.  Deduction  of  all  God's  metaphysical  attributes  from  any 
one  of  those  attributes.  —  II.  Intellectual  and  moral  attributes.  — 
III.  Ipsum  intelligere  Dei  est  ejus  substantia.  The  various  ideas 
in  God.  —  IV.  God's  providence.  Creation.  Death.  —  V.  To 
what  the  triple  distinction  between  the  attributes  of  God 
corresponds 304-326 

CHAPTER  IX. 

INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS. 

I.  How  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  is,  as  Descartes  and  Leib- 
nitz assert,  mathematically  exact.  It  is  the  highest  application  of 
the  general  infinitesimal  method,  of  which  the  geometrical  infini- 
tesimal process  is  merely  a  special  application.  —  II.  Why  many 
minds  reverse  the  process  which  lifts  our  mind  to  God,  and  direct 
it  in  a  contrary  course.  The  scientific  process  of  modern  atheism  is 
only  the  infinitesimal  process  inversely  applied.  Its  result  is  an  ex- 
act proof,  ad  absurdum,  of  the  existence  of  God.  —  III.  Conclusion 
of  first  part  of  the  Treatise  on  the  Knowledge  of  God  .  .  .  327-348 


CONTENTS. 


fart   £econti. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    TWO   DEGREES   OP   THE   DIVINE    INTELLIGIBLE. 

I.  Three  states  of  reason.  —  II.  Description  of  these  different  states  of 
reason.  —  III.  Causes  of  these  different  states.  —  IV.  Continuation. 
How  reason  attains  to  its  highest  term :  Ratio  perveniens  ad  Jinem 
suum  .  ......  .  .  349-362 


CHAPTER  II. 

RELATIONS   BETWEEN   REASON   AND   FAITH. 

Distinction  between  the  two  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible,  —  that 
to  which  reason  attains,  and  that  which,  of  itself,  it  cannot  grasp, 
according  to  Saint  Thomas.  —  II.  Comparison  between  reason  and 
faith,  according  to  Saint  Thomas,  Thomassin,  and  Saint  Augustine. 
—  III.  Analogy  to  this  distinction  in  Saint  Paul.  —  IV.  What  can 
reason  do  without  faith  ?  —  V.  Parallel  between  the  two  forms  of 
wisdom,  natural  and  supernatural,  by  Cornelius  a  Lapide.  Reason 
and  faith  compared  by  the  Council  of  Trent.  —  VI.  Evident  limits 
of  reason.  —  VII.  What  is  natural  reason  ?  Analogy  between  the 
evolution  of  reason  and  that  of  faith.  —  VIII.  What  is  sound  reason 
and  what  perverted  reason?  Reason  conjoined  to  its  principle; 
reason  doubting  its  principle 363-392 


CHAPTER  III. 

RELATIONS   BETWEEN   REASON   AND   FAITH    (Continued). 

I.  What  is  sound  reason  (continued)  ?  Natural  faith.  —  II.  Natu- 
ral faith,  divine  sense,  according  to  the  Holy  Scripture.  —  III.  Natu- 
ral faith  according  to  Aristotle,  the  Alexandrians,  and  Kant. — 
IV.  Natural  faith,  according  to  Thomassin.  —  V.  Reason  supported 
by  its  principle,  by  natural  faith.  —  VI.  Is  there,  actually,  no  super- 
natural gift  mingled  with  sound  natural  reason  1 393-410 


CONTENTS.  xi 

CHAPTER  IV. 

RELATIONS  BETWEEN   KEASON   AND   FAITH    (Continued). 

PAGE 

I.  What  can  sound  reason  do  ?  It  may  recognize  its  limitations,  and 
regret  that  which  it  lacks  :  this  is  its  highest  capability.  —  II.  Exact 
precision  of  theological  formulas  on  this  subject.  The  perfection  of 
the  rational  creature  depends  upon  a  certain  gift  superior  to  the  na- 
ture of  the  created  being.  Geometrical  analogy.  —  III.  Natural 
desire  to  see  God,  according  to  Saint  Thomas 411-431 

CHAPTER  V. 

RELATIONS   BETWEEN    REASON   AND  FAITH    (Continued). 

I.  Transition  from  reason  to  faith.  —  II.  Evening  light  and  morning 
light.  —  III.  Genesis  of  light  according  to  the  Gospel  .  .  .  432-417 

CHAPTER  VI. 

RELATIONS   BETWEEN   REASON   AND   FAITH    (Continued). 

SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION. 

I.  Two  degrees  of  light :  Sound  reason.  Perverted  reason.  Slug- 
gish reason.  Comparison.  —  II.  Theological  Summary.  —  III.  We 
must  advance,  with  the  help  of  God,  to  the  higher  of  the  two  degrees 
of  the  divine  intelligible 448-469 


UNJVEKblTY 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  TRANSLATION. 

BY  WILLIAM  ROUNSEVILLE  ALGER. 


TN  its  original  language  the  work  here  translated  has 
passed  through  many  editions,  and  has  attained  the 
rank  of  an  authoritative  classic.  It  is  characterized  by 
such  comprehensiveness  of  scope,  such  force  and  beauty  of 
style,  such  amplitude  of  learning,  such  ripeness  and  pre- 
cision of  thought,  such  depth  of  experience,  and  such  catho- 
licity of  spirit  that  no  one  can  fitly  read  it  without  being 
instructed,  stimulated,  and  edified.  The  author  sweeps  with 
the  ease  of  a  consummate  mastery  through  the  wisdom  of 
twenty-five  centuries,  gathers  up  the  chief  treasures  depos- 
ited there  by  the  kings  of  insight,  and  presents  them  con- 
structed into  one  harmonious  whole.  The  question  with 
which  he  grapples  as  strenuously  as  any  one  ever  has  done, 
is  whether  the  human  mind  is  able  to  attain  to  a  real 
knowledge  of  God.  To  the  examination  of  this  sublime 
theme  he  brings  both  an  intense  earnestness  and  an  unfail- 
ing sobriety;  while  adding  to  these  high  qualities  all  that 
historic  erudition  and  training  can  yield  from  without,  or 
personal  acumen  and  consecration  furnish  from  within. 
The  result,  as  embodied  in  the  present  volume,  is  one  with 
which,  in  point  of  attractiveness  and  solid  value,  no  work 
on  the  same  subject  within  the  entire  compass  of  English 
literature  can  for  a  moment  stand  a  comparison. 

Gratry  answers  the  question,  Can  man  know  God  ?  in  the 
most  effective  way  possible,  by  setting  forth,  in  systematic 

i 


2  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  TRANSLATION. 

outline  and  with  appropriate  detail,  the  experimental  and 
critical  conclusions  at  which  a  large  number  of  the  most 
illustrious  thinkers  of  our  race,  from  Plato  and  Aristotle 
to  Fe'nelon  and  Leibnitz,  have  actually  arrived  on  that 
subject.  He  lays  bare  the  methods  they  employed,  the  dif- 
ficulties they  encountered,  the  arguments  they  constructed, 
the  aids  they  received,  the  results  they  conquered,  and  their 
fundamental  agreement  through  all.  He  does  this  with  an 
incisiveness  of  thought,  a  summarizing  skill,  a  patience,  an 
impartiality,  and  a  lucidity  most  admirable  and  most  de- 
lightful. It  is  true  that  as  we  pass  on  from  name  to  name 
there  seems  to  be  a  good  deal  of  repetition.  But  there  is 
ever  a  variety  in  the  sameness,  a  progressive  growth  in  the 
exposition,  a  cumulative  gain  through  the  repeatals,  which 
fully  reward  the  reader.  As  he  goes  over,  in  theodicy  after 
theodicy,  what  appear  to  be  quite  identical  statements,  he 
will  more  and  more  find  doubts  dissolved,  objections  an- 
swered, obscurities  illuminated,  peace  bestowed,  assurance 
and  satisfaction  breaking  in.  There  are  very  few,  even 
among  professional  students  of  philosophy,  who  will  not 
find  themselves  abundantly  repaid  for  a  patient  perusal  of 
all  the  repetitions  in  these  freighted  pages,  —  so  momentous 
are  the  themes  treated,  and  so  masterly  is  the  treatment. 

One  of  the  central  traits  of  this  work  is  the  appeal  the 
author  makes  for  the  action  of  human  nature  in  its  integ- 
rity as  regulated  by  the  sovereign  unity  of  the  rational 
principle.  He  protests  against  the  division  of  the  soul  into 
a  collection  of  abstracting  faculties  which  operate  separ- 
ately and  breed  all  sorts  of  error,  fiction,  and  confusion. 
He  quotes  approvingly  the  bold  remark  of  Fenelon,  "  Eeason 
is  even  more  wanting  on  earth  than  religion."  Having  also 
cited  the  great  saying  of  Saint  Thomas,  "  In  the  moral  order, 
crimes  against  nature  are  worse  than  sacrilege,"  he  adds, 
"  So  in  the  intellectual  order  that  crime  against  nature  which 


INTRODUCTION  TO   THE   TRANSLATION.  3 

attacks  reason  is  worse  than  the  sacrilege  which  attacks 
faith ;  for  to  ruin  reason  is  to  prostrate  the  religious  edifice 
by  undermining  the  ground." 

The  vindication  of  the  powers  and  rights  of  reason,  so 
nobly  illustrated  in  the  whole  body  of  the  work,  has  been 
formally  stated  by  Gratry  in  the  following  eloquent  passage, 
which  is  no  less  timely  than  it  is  just  and  weighty: 

"  What  is  the  common  and  natural  state  of  the  reason  among 
men  3  We  see  it  all  about  us.  God  is  still  unknown  to  the  ma- 
jority of  men,  and  almost  all  are  profoundly  ignorant  of  their  des- 
tiny, their  nature,  and  their  duty.  The  majority  still  reject  the 
unmistakable  light  thrown  upon  human  questions  by  universal 
reason,  aided  by  God,  and  they  are  unable  to  pass  this  first  and 
natural  initiatory  step,  and  far  from  attaining  to  the  higher  initi- 
ation which  God  has  prepared  for  all.  Very  few  men  even  suc- 
ceed in  gaining  complete  mastery  of  their  body ;  nearly  all  live  a 
fortuitous  and  turbulent  life,  conducive  to  premature  old  age  and 
untimely  death. 

"How  few  reasonable  beings  there  are  who  cultivate  in  them- 
selves the  sacred  gift  of  reason !  The  greater  number  cultivate 
the  earth ;  others  cultivate  nothing.  Throughout  humanity,  with 
but  rare  exceptions,  reason,  that  sacred  talent  intrusted  by  God  to 
every  man  on  his  entrance  into  this  world,  remains  sterile  or  buried. 

"  Bossuet,  speaking  of  reason  hidden  in  the  flesh,  says  :  '  What 
efforts  must  we  not  make  to  distinguish  our  soul  from  our  body ! 
How  many  of  us  there  are  who  never  attain  to  the  knowledge  or 
slightest  perception  of  this  distinction ! '  '  How  many  are  there 
who  rise  somewhat  above  this  mass  of  flesh,  and  clear  their  soul 
from  it?' 

"  Yes,  there  are  but  very  few  men  in  whom  reason  is  distinct 
from  the  mass  of  instincts,  sensations,  and  wants,  constituting  a 
free  force  and  an  independent  power.  With  almost  all  it  is  a 
sorely  oppressed  force,  a  power  subordinated,  not  only  to  the  im- 
agination, the  senses,  interests,  and  desires,  but  also  to  the  cur- 
rent of  the  blood  and  the  disposition,  the  influence  of  the  matter 
which  feeds  otir  body,  and  the  forces  of  physical  nature.  Reason, 
the  logical  varnish  of  a  purely  animal  life,  the  blind  and  trivial 


4  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  TRANSLATION. 

bond  of  our  passions,  desires,  humors,  and  sensations,  —  reason, 
blended  with  the  whole,  and  carried  away  by  the  general  move- 
ment, obeys  slavishly,  instead  of  ruling. 

"There  are,  among  God's  creatures,  animals  belonging  to  the 
lower  grades  of  life.  Their  body  is  but  a  uniform  mass,  without 
distinct  organs.  Each  point  represents  as  well  as  any  other  the 
essential  centres  of  life,  and  exercises  all  its  functions  vapidly  and 
indifferently.  There  is  no  distinct  heart  or  brain ;  all  is  con- 
founded in  the  sum  total  of  the  mass.  Well,  just  such  is  the  in- 
tellectual organization  of  the  multitude  at  the  present  day.  Reason 
is  in  the  germ,  but  not  developed ;  it  is  spread  throughout  the 
mass,  but  is  destitute  of  distinct  central  organ.  It  does  not  form, 
let  me  repeat,  a  free  force  and  an  independent  power.  The  minds 
of  such  men  may  be  compared  to  those  inferior  organizations  in 
the  animal  scale  which  have  no  distinct  brain. 

"And  with  those  who  have  developed  the  germ  of  reason  to 
some  slight  degree,  how  is  the  development  accomplished1?  'We 
seldom  encounter  anywhere  other  than  warped  intellects,'  said 
A*naud  in  the  seventeenth  century.  What  would  he  say  now? 

"  What  is  a  warped  intellect  1  Bacon  defines  it  very  "happily : 
'  It  is  a  mirror  without  symmetry,  irregular,  in  the  beams  of  the 
sun.'  *  Joubert  uses  the  same  figure  in  regard  to  one  of  our  more 
excessive  thinkers :  '  Thomas  has  a  concave  head ;  it  exaggerates 
and  enlarges  everything  which  it  reflects.'  Now,  just  as  crooked 
mirrors  deform  every  image,  so  a  warped  intellect  distorts  the  data 
which  might  raise  it  to  the  heights  of  truth.  This  one-sided  in- 
telligence falsifies  the  truth  which  strikes  it;  it  is  addressed  in 
words  of  truth,  it  hears  falsehood ;  beauty  and  sublimity  are  held 
up  before  it,  it  sees  only  deformity.  This  may  be  accounted  for. 
Just  as  unsymmetrical  surfaces  are  fantastic  and  distorted  mirrors 
which  falsify  by  their  unevenly  developed  dimensions,  so  a  warped 
intellect  is  a  disproportionately  developed  intellect.  For  is  not 
our  weak  understanding  usually  employed  in  the  exclusive  direc- 
tion of  one  ruling  passion,  one  fixed  idea  or  supreme  prejudice'? 
Who  is  there  whose  intellectual  mirror  is  a  regular  surface  in  every 
direction,  spherical  as  the  vault  of  heaven,  or  smooth  as  the  mirror 
of  the  waters? 

"Certainly  the  majority  of  minds  are  strange  and  distorted 
reflectors. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE   TRANSLATION.  5 

"  Being  thus  formed,  they  can  derive  only  error  from  the  spec- 
tacle of  visible  things  and  of  the  inner  actions  of  the  soul,  and 
from  that  of  human  events.  They  gaze,  and  fancy  that  they  see 
everything ;  they  do  see  everything  but  the  sum  total  and  the  pro- 
portions. It  is  thus  that  we  observe  the  world,  that  we  write 
history,  and  that  we  describe  mankind.  It  is  thus  that,  day  by 
day,  we  retrace  present  facts  visible  to  every  eye ;  and  the  tale  is 
false.  We  do  not  deliberately  lie,  but  we  give  everything  facti- 
tious dimensions,  conformed  to  the  desired  effect.  We  enlarge 
what  pleases  us,  and  render  imperceptible  whatever  offends.  We 
are  false,  and  we  see  things  as  we  ourselves  are. 

"  There  is  another  natural  infirmity  of  the  reason,  which  is  very 
apparent  at  the  present  time.  Even  those  who  think  somewhat 
correctly,  think  but  little  and  almost  fruitlessly,  because  they  are 
isolated,  because  each  mind  sees  by  itself  alone ;  union  and  associa- 
tion of  intellectual  forces  are  yet  to  come.  The  confusion  of  tongues, 
the  antagonism  of  sects,  the  subdivision  of  intellectual  persons,  and 
above  all,  the  secret  question  at  the  bottom  of  every  heart,  'God  or 
no  god,'  the  question  which  divides  mankind  into  two  camps,  —  is 
anything  more  than  this  needed  to  keep  apart  those  who  think  1 
The  sphere  of  the  intellectual  world  is  still  inhabited  on  the  exterior, 
not  at  the  centre,  where  all  rays  meet,  but  only  on  the  surface,  where 
all  are  divided  :  so  that  there  are,  in  the  world  of  science  and  of 
thought,  regions  divided  by  space,  subject  to  different  heavens, 
speaking  different  languages,  and  much  more  foreign  to  one  another 
than  the  various  races  of  the  earth.  Each  science  is  surrounded 
by  a  high  wall,  and  so  is  every  intellect.  The  unity  of  the  human 
mind  is  less  attained  than  that  of  the  globe. 

"If  we  would  save  religion,  society,  and  civilization,  the  first 
work  to  undertake  is  the  restoration  of  public  reason.  We  must 
re-establish  in  the  minds  of  men  a  knowledge  of  and  respect  for 
reason  and  its  laws,  and  the  practice  of  these  laws,  logic.  It  must 
be  known,  for  it  has  been  forgotten,  that  there  are  both  error  and 
truth  in  the  world,  and  that  the  one  may  be  distinguished  from 
the  other;  that  there  is  a  true  method  of  human  thinking,  —  that 
is  to  say,  there  are  fixed  principles  and  legitimate  processes ;  that 
these  principles  and  processes  have  been  practised  in  all  ages  in- 
stinctively by  many  persons,  and  might  have  been  so  in  a  certain 
sense  by  all;  that  they  were  practised  with  some  conscientious- 


6  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  TRANSLATION. 

ness  and  with  admirable  results  by  philosophical  minds  in  every 
century;  but  that  they  were  ignored  and  violated  by  the  blind 
criticism  and  lawless  practice  of  sophists  in  all  ages ;  that  the  true 
philosophical  method,  without  being  yet  very  completely  defined, 
has  nevertheless,  in  the  course  of  ages,  been  determined  and  de- 
veloped by  the  success  of  its  applications  and  the  even  clearer 
sense  of  those  great  intellects  who  made  use  of  it ;  but  that  there 
exists  a  false  method  and  a  sophistical  process,  which  has  never 
ceased  to  impede  the  advance  of  philosophy  by  its  perturbing 
action,  and  that  this  power  of  contradiction,  ever  increasing,  seems 
to  borrow  strength  from  the  very  progress  of  truth. 

"  This  being  thoroughly  perceived,  we  must  proceed  to  separate 
these  shadows  and  this  light ;  that  is,  we  must  at  last  learn  to  make 
a  scientific  distinction  between  sophistry  and  philosophy.  We  must 
give  their  true  names,  in  history,  to  philosophers  and  sophists. 
Moving  in  a  direction  contrary  to  contemporary  eclecticism,  philo- 
sophy must  at  last  proceed  to  the  necessary  excommunication  of  its 
domestic  foes,  instead  of  greeting  and  embracing  them.  The  errone- 
ous method,  and  that  whicli  leads  to  truth,  must  be  exactly  defined  j 
we  must  recognize,  what  is  manifest  enough,  that  the  sophistical 
process  is  nothing  but  the  philosophical  method  inverted. 

''The  division  once  accomplished,  and  the  sophists  set  apart,  we 
must  restore  the  legitimate  rule  of  reason  and  philosophy  among 
us  by  the  study  of  genuine  philosophers,  by  the  practice  and 
knowledge  of  their  method,  as  well  as  by  a  study  of  the  sophists, 
considered  as  a  counter  proof  and  demonstration  through  the 
absurd. 

"Philosophy,  a  universal  science,  must  come  forth  from  its  isolation 
and  look  face  to  face  at  the  special  branches  of  science  which  regard 
philosophy  with  contempt.  Philosophy,  as  a  wise  writer  expresses 
it,  must  cross  the  boundary-line,  enter  the  domain  of  science,  and 
take  possession  of  it.  It  is  right  that  all  these  branches  of  science 
which  philosophy  created  should  be  subject  to  it ;  or  rather,  it  is 
right  that  the  human  mind  should  cease  to  be  divided  into  regions 
unknown  each  to  the  other,  and  that  the  various  sciences  should 
resume  their  natural  relations  in  the  unity  of  philosophy. 

"  Still  more  must  be  done,  if  we  are  to  re-establish  the  serious 
education  of  reason  among  us. 

"  It  is  not  enough  that  science  should  exist,  —  it  must  become  a 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE   TRANSLATION.  7 

part  of  human  intelligence  ;  and  reason  must  be  actually  developed 
in  every  man,  or  at  least  in  the  majority  of  those  who  desire  to 
think,  and  believe  that  they  do  so. 

"  Now,  so  long  as  we  blindly  refuse  to  recognize  that  the  solid 
and  healthy  growth  of  thought  proceeds  from  the  growth  of  the 
entire  soul  and  will,  there  can  be  no  mental  change.  There  can  be 
no  advance  of  reason  without  a  corresponding  advance  in  moral 
strength  and  freedom.  Intellect  and  will,  reason  and  freedom,  are 
the  two  wings  of  the  soul,  upon  which  it  rises  to  its  only  object, 
which  is  goodness,  and  at  the  same  time  truth. 

"  Farther  yet,  —  and  this  is  the  supreme  question  in  the  life  of 
the  human  mind  and  its  history,  a  vital  question  for  the  human 
intellect,  —  is  our  reason  conjoined  to  that  of  God,  or  is  it  wholly 
separate  ?  Is  reason  destined  to  become  holy,  or  to  sink  into 
degradation?  At  which  extreme  is  it  to  stop]  For  it  will  not 
remain  at  this  sterile  and  changeable  intermediate,  which  is  the 
end  of  nothing;  it  must  either  fall  or  rise. 

"  Reason  is  a  force  that  seeks  for  its  beginning  and  end.  Now, 
the  truth  is,  that  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  reason  is  God. 
The  human  heart  seeks  God  no  more  unceasingly  than  reason  does. 
Only  in  this  pursuit  the  mind,  as  well  as  the  heart,  is  subject  to 
change.  When  the  human  heart  changes,  we  have  moral  perversion. 
\V  hen  the  human  mind  changes,  we  have  intellectual  perversion,  — 
the  vice  of  sophists.  '  Truth,'  says  Saint  Augustine,  '  lies  in  placing 
in  God  these  three  things,  —  the  cause  of  the  world,  the  supreme 
good,  the  fulcrum  of  reason.'  Nothing  more  profound  could  be  said. 
Very  certainly  the  whole  history  of  philosophy  and  sophistry  is  con- 
tained in  that  sentence.  Only  Saint  Augustine  makes  no  mention 
here  of  the  final  abyss  irto  which  the  sophist  plunges  when,  setting 
God  apart  from  reason,  he  undermines  the  latter  to  discover  its 
origin. 

"  But  what  happens  when,  far  from  dividing  it  from  God,  we 
conjoin  the  two,  and  reason  follows  its  research  to  the  end? 
'  Reason/  says  Saint  Augustine,  —  *  reason,  attaining  its  end,  be- 
comes virtue/  But  what  virtue?  Let  us  see. 

"  There  is  a  height,  according  to  Saint  Augustine,  where  reason 
stops.  This  is  its  end.  This  is  plain  to  every  true  philosopher. 
'  The  science  of  the  human  mind/  said  Royer-Collard,  '  will  have 
been  carried  to  the  highest  degree  of  perfection  which  it  can  attain 
when  it  can  derive  ignorance  from  its  primary  source.' 


8  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE   TRANSLATION. 

"  There  is,  therefore,  let  us  say  with  Saint  Augustine,  a  height 
where  reason  stops  :  this  is  its  end.  But  there  it  goes  on  in 
something  which  is  not  itself;  as  one  river  flows  into  another,  or 
is  borne  to  the  ocean.  This  is  the  point  where  the  mind  of  man  is 
continued  in  the  mind  of  God  himself,  and  is  subject  to  it.  This 
subjection,  or  rather  this  high  degree  of  elevation  of  the  human 
reason,  subject  to  the  mind  of  God,  is  faith.  Faith,  —  that  is  the 
virtue  to  which  reason  soars  when  it  attains  its  end.  'Faith  is 
indeed,'  says  Pascal,  'the  last  step  of  reason.'  Only  we  must  of 
course  agree  as  to  this  capital  truth  whose  admission  or  rejection 
decides  the  destinies  of  the  world  and  the  human  mind. 

"  We  affirm  that  this  subjection  of  the  human  mind  to  the  Spirit 
of  God  is  not  the  destruction  of  reason,  but  its  final  perfection. 
Reason,  said  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  most  exact  of  philosophers 
as  well  as  the  greatest  of  theologians,  —  reason  is  capable  of  a  two- 
fold perfection ;  namely,  its  proper  and  natural  perfection,  resulting 
from  its  own  principles  and  its  own  powers,  and  the  perfection 
which  it  borrows  from  its  union  and  subjection  to  the  Spirit  of  God 
himself,  —  a  principle  higher  and  greater  than  it.  This  is  its  final 
and  supernatural  perfection  ;  it  is  the  human  mind  engrafted  upon 
the  Divine  mind,  if  we  may  so  express  it.  Reason  then  bears 
fruits  which  it  could  not  bear;  and  as  the  poet  says,  repeating  the 
words  of  Nature  herself,  — 

"  'Admires  those  fruits  which  are  not  hers.' 

"  These  fruits  are  those  of  the  Spirit  of  God  become  the  directly 
fertilizing  principle  of  human  reason,  which  none  the  less  retains 
its  individual  principles. 

"Far  from  diminishing  reason,  the  introduction  of  the  higher 
principle  lifts  it  to  incomparable  greatness,  vivifies  its  powers, 
and  increases  the  fruitfulness  of  its  natural  principle. 

"  This  alliance,  in  one  sense,  may  be  compared  to  the  divine 
alliance,  to  which  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  alludes  when  he  says, 
'  Divine  knowledge  in  the  soul  of  Christ  did  not  kill  human  knowl- 
edge, but  made  it  more  luminous.' 

"  It  is  of  this  alliance  that  a  holily  far-sighted  spirit  said,  early 
in  the  seventeenth  century :  *  There  are  three  kinds  of  knowledge,  — 
purely  divine  knowledge,  the  purely  human  knowledge,  and  knowl- 
edge at  once  human  and  divine,  which  is  indeed  the  true  knowledge 
of  Christians.9 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE   TRANSLATION.  9 

"  It  was  this  alliance  which  the  genius  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, the  parent  of  knowledge,  actually  sought.  Instituted  by  those 
great  men  who  were  all  at  once  theologians,  philosophers,  and 
scientists,  from  Kepler  down  to  Leibnitz,  —  passing  by  Pascal, 
Descartes,  Malebranche,  Bossuet,  and  Fenelon,  —  this  sacred  alli- 
ance of  all  departments  of  intellect  one  with  the  other,  and  of  the 
human  mind  with  the  divine  mind,  was  the  cause  of  the  greatness 
and  creative  fertility  of  that  period,  the  most  luminous  in  history. 
But  since  this  tie  was  severed,  we  have  only  dimmed  that  match- 
less light,  and  most  of  us  can  no  longer  even  see  it. 

"  So  that  when  human  reason  is  conjoined  to  God  through 
faith,  —  history  shows  it,  —  besides  the  new  and  sublime  data 
which  result,  its  natural  powers  are  increased,  its  individual  prin- 
ciples bear  their  rarest  natural  fruits,  mingled  with  divine  fruits. 
When,  on  the  contrary,  reason  breaks  the  alliance  always  offered 
to  every  mind,  in  every  age,  this  refusal,  this  reversion  to  its  un- 
aided self,  this  isolation  and  sacrilegious  negation,  weaken  its 
natural  powers,  and  lead  it,  from  negation  to  negation,  to  deny 
itself,  —  an  intellectual  suicide  whose  name  is  sophistry. 

"  Consider  the  great  and  wonderful  symbolism,  too  little  under- 
stood and  too  little  heeded,  which  the  eighteenth  century  affords 
us  in  that  final  scene  when  man  strove  to  reject  God  and  to  wor- 
ship himself  and  his  own  reason  only  ! 

"  What  did  man  do  when  he  attempted  to  place  human  reason 
on  the  altar,  to  adore  that  alone  ? 

"Let  history  speak.  He  placed  a  naked  prostitute  upon  the 
altar.  That  is,  he  put  upon  the  altar  reason  smeared  with  mud, 
reason  smothered  in  flesh  and  blood. 

"  And  what  was  cast  down  from  that  altar  to  make  way  for  this 
infamous  goddess '{  Heed  the  answer  well !  Human  reason  was 
cast  down,  but  human  reason  allied  with  God. 

"Men  did  not  know,  they  do  not  yet  know,  that  human  reason 
can  find  place  upon  a  Catholic  altar. 

"  What  is  there,  then,  on  the  Catholic  altar  if  it  be  not  Jesus 
Christ1?  And  what  is  Jesus  Christ,  if  he  be  not  God  allied  to  man  ? 
'  The  Divine  Word,'  says  our  dogma,  '  took  on,  in  its  incarnation, 
a  human  soul,  a  human  soul  gifted  with  reason.9 

"I  give  the  exact  statement,  in  the  language  of  the  Church  : 
*  Verbura  divinum  aniniam  humanam,  eamque  rationis  participem, 
assumpsit/ 


10  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE   TRANSLATION. 

"  Thus,  according  to  our  dogma,  human  reason,  in  actual  pres- 
ence, was  upon  the  Catholic  altar;  it  was  there  conjoined  with  God. 
It  was  driven  thence,  to  be  replaced  by  human  reason  degraded  and 
dragged  through  the  mud.  The  holy  altar  was  stripped  of  the  su- 
preme reason,  the  reason  of  Jesus,  the  reason  of  the  Man-God,  and 
replaced  by  the  feeble  reason  of  a  lewd  crew.  Men  were  given 
their  choice  of  alliance,  —  reason  allied  to  filth,  or  reason  conjoined 
to  God.  They  made  their  choice. 

"We  will  not  rest  satisfied  with  this  choice.  We  will  reject 
what  we  took,  and  take  back  what  we  rejected.  Soon,  I  hope,  the 
majority  of  us  will  understand  what  was  so  happily  and  finely  ex- 
pressed in  a  now  famous  address  :  '  The  great  question,  the  supreme 
question,  which  now  absorbs  all  minds,  is  the  question  put  by  those 
who  recognize  and  those  who  do  not  recognize  a  supernatural,  sure, 
and  supreme  order  of  things.  .  .  .  For  our  present  and  future  safety 
alike,  faith  in  the  supernatural  order,  submission  to  the  natural 
order,  must  re-enter  the  world,  and  the  human  soul  must  be  born 
again  in  great  minds  as  well  as  in  simple  ones,  in  the  highest  as 
well  as  in  the  humblest  regions.' 

"  Yes,  our  present  and  future  safety  demand  faith  in  the  super- 
natural order. 

"  At  this  price  reason  may  resume  its  sway  over  us ;  the  mind 
may  be  lifted  up  and  rescued.  At  this  price  we  may  yet  see  some- 
thing of  Leibnitz's  great  prediction  accomplished:  'Let  us  hope 
that  a  time  may  come  when  men  will  devote  themselves  to  reason 
more  than  they  have  hitherto  done.'  Upheld  by  God,  and  living 
by  faith,  far  more  men  will  succeed  in  some  degree  in  freeing  their 
soul  and  reason  from  this  weight  of  flesh,  and  in  living,  throughout 
an  entire  lifetime,  by  the  love  of  justice  and  truth  alone ;  more  men 
will  take  up,  conscientiously  and  vigorously,  literature,  science,  and 
philosophy,  as  sacred  instruments  to  be  used  for  the  good  of  hu- 
manity, for  the  increase  of  light,  wisdom,  and  dignity  among  men, 
for  the  progress  of  the  world  towards  God." 

Few  works  can  compare  with  this  one  by  Professor  Gratry 
as  an  exhibition  of  the  compass  of  human  reason  and  of  what 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  calls  "  the  much-misappreciated  power 
of  reasoning."  He  clearly  shows  the  truth  of  the  assertion 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE   TRANSLATION.  11 

of  Descartes  and  Leibnitz,  repeated  by  Cardinal  Gerdil,  that 
the  existence  of  God  and  his  infinite  perfections  may  be  as 
rigorously  proved  as  the  solution  of  any  mathematical  prob- 
lem. He  shows  this  with  the  most  brilliant  originality,  by 
proving  that  the  demonstration  of  the  existence  of  God  is  the 
supreme  achievement  of  a  general  process  of  the  reason,  of 
which  the  infinitesimal  methods  of  geometry  are  but  a  special 
application.  The  attention  of  the  reader  is  particularly  in- 
vited to  the  exposition  of  this  assertion  where  it  occurs  in 
the  following  pages.  It  is  no  less  fruitful  and  illuminating 
in  its  consequences  than  it  is  startlingly  original  in  itself. 

The  character  and  life  of  the  illustrious  author  of  this 
work  were  in  full  keeping  with  his  attainments  and  fame. 
He  was  not  merely  a  scholar  and  a  philosopher,  but  likewise 
a  philanthropist  and  a  saint,  who  thoroughly  lived  the  doc- 
trine he  taught.  In  his  spiritual  will  were  found,  after  his 
death,  these  touching  words  :  "  1  leave  to  every  human  being 
whom  I  have  ever  greeted  or  blessed,  or  to  whom  I  have 
ever  spoken  any  word  o'f  esteem  or  affection,  the  assurance 
that  I  love  and  bless  him  twice  and  thrice  as  much  as  I  said. 
I  entreat  all  such  to  pray  for  me,  that  I  may  attain  to  the 
kingdom  of  love,  whither  I  will  draw  him  too  through  the 
infinite  goodness  of  our  Father." 

In  order  to  bring  the  two  volumes  of  the  original  within 
the  compass  of  a  single  larger  volume  in  the  translation,  the 
superfluous  appendices  and  some  of  the  foot-notes  contain- 
ing the  texts  rendered  by  the  author  in  the  body  of  his  work, 
have  been  omitted.  The  prefaces  to  the  first  three  editions, 
abounding  with  personal  and  local  references,  as  well  as  a 
long  and  polemical  Introduction,  have  likewise  been  left  out. 

The  editor  of  this  translation  deems  it  his  duty,  in  bring- 
ing the  work  before  the  public  in  its  English  dress,  to  add  a 
word  of  protest  against  the  view  which  Gratry  gives  of  the 
German  school  of  philosophy  as  presented  in  the  culminating 


12  INTRODUCTION  TO   THE   TRANSLATION. 

exposition  of  Hegel.  Ecclesiastical  prejudice,  national  bias, 
differences  in  points  of  view  and  in  nomenclature,  have  pre- 
vented many  Catholic  thinkers  of  the  highest  ability,  includ- 
ing even  Eos  mini,  from  seeing  the  real  depth  and  the  solid 
result  of  the  speculative  movement  begun  by  Kant,  advanced 
by  Fichte,  and  carried  through  by  Hegel.  Because  the  dia- 
lectic of  the  transcendental  school  is  that  of  a  negative  unity, 
its  foes  charge  it  with  being  exclusively  negative,  and  ending 
in  nihilism.  But  Aristotle  says,  in  the  first  chapter  of  the 
last  book  of  his  Metaphysics,  "All  contraries  inseparably 
belong  to  a  subject."  Hegel  was  the  first  thinker  syste- 
matically to  develop  this  statement  through  all  its  implica- 
tions. He  showed,  as  Fichte  had  partly  done  before,  that 
every  lower  set  of  contraries  is  reconciled  in  a  higher  cate- 
gory, whose  unity  contains  and  mediates  them,  the  highest 
category  being  free  self -consciousness.  The  negative  dialectic 
presupposes  the  affirmative,  as  the  affirmative  dialectic  pre- 
supposes the  negative ;  because  both  presuppose  the  absolute 
dialectic,  without  which  neither  of  these  could  be.  Thus 
the  negative  phase  of  the  dialectic,  when  completed,  is  found 
to  carry  also  the  opposite  phase,  and  to  coincide  with  the 
whole  sphere  of  a  self-determining  unity.  Hegelianism  ends 
neither  with  atheism  nor  pantheism  nor  nihilism,  but  with  a 
solidly  grounded  vision  of  God,  freedom,  and  immortality. 

This  does  not  affect  the  value  of  the  present  work  in  its 
positive  exposition,  which  unveils  a  mine  of  matchless 
wealth,  hidden,  for  the  most  part,  from  the  Protestant  world 
by  ignorance  and  prejudice.  The  central  part  of  the  divine 
wisdom  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the  speculative  insight  cu- 
mulatively developed  in  a  broadening  and  brightening  river 
of  tradition  by  its  peerless  thinkers  and  saints  through  so 
many  centuries,  is  here  freely  offered  to  all  who  are  able  to 
understand  it  and  willing  to  receive  it. 


GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 


CHAPTEE   I. 

EXPLANATOKY. 


,"  says  Bossuet,  "consists  in  knowing  God 
and  knowing  one's  self."  These  words  are,  in 
brief,  a  true  definition  of  philosophy. 

They  mean,  at  the  outset,  that  philosophy  is  the  search 
for  wisdom;  that  is,  the  search,  both  theoretical  and  prac- 
tical, for  goodness  and  truth.  They  declare  that  philosophy 
is  not  that  abstract  and  purely  speculative  knowledge  of 
which  Bossuet  also  says  elsewhere,  "Woe  to  that  barren 
knowledge  which  never  turns  to  love,  and  is  false  to  itself  !  " 

These  words,  moreover,  limit  the  object  of  philosophy. 
That  object  is  God  and  man;  it  is  man  seeking  through  the 
intellect  and  the  will  to  find  goodness  and  truth,  which  are 
God. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  definition  does  not  divide  those 
things  which  are  incapable  of  division,  and  does  not  exclude 
from  philosophy  a  knowledge  of  bodies  and  of  the  visible 
world.  "For,"  says  Bossuet,  "to  know  man,  we  must  know 
that  he  is  made  up  of  two  parts,  which  are  the  body  and 
the  soul."  Hence  we  see  that  philosophy  also  treats  of 
visible  and  material  nature,  especially  in  its  relation  to  the 
soul  and  to  God. 


14  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

So  that  the  various  divisions  of  philosophy  are  — 

I.  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD  (Theodicy). 

II.  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE  SOUL,  considered  in  its  re- 
lations to  God  and  the  body  (Psychology). 

III.  LOGIC,  which  is  a  further  development  of  psychology, 
and  which  studies  the  soul  through  its  intelligence,  and  the 
laws  of  that  intelligence. 

IV.  MORALS,  which  is  another  outgrowth  of  psychology, 
and  which  studies  the  soul  through  its  will,  and  the  laws 
of  that  will. 

We  shall  explain  these  different  divisions  of  philosophy, 
each  in  turn,  beginning  with  the  theodicy. 

This  order  is  that  of  Descartes,  Fe'nelon,  Malebranche,  and 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas.  Bossuet  followed  the  inverse  order. 
But  we  prefer  to  begin  with  the  theodicy,  because  in  our 
view  it  implies  the  whole  of  philosophy.  It  shows  it  to 
us  as  a  unity,  a  totality ;  it  contains  all  its  roots.  Every- 
thing proceeds  from  it;  it  is  therefore  the  starting-point. 

Moreover,  the  theodicy,  which  is  the  loftiest,  most  pro- 
found department  of  philosophy,  is  also  the  simplest. 
Ideas  of  infinity  and  perfection,  as  Descartes,  Bossuet,  and 
the  majority  of  philosophers  remark,  are  the  first  which 
awakening  reason  reveals  to  us,  —  which  proves  that  reason 
first  impels  us  towards  God.  It  is  the  cause  of  nature,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  is  the  absolute  order  of  truths  taken 
in  themselves. 

But  by  theodicy  must  not  be  understood  only  the  knowl- 
edge of  God;  it  also  means  most  particularly  the  knowledge 
of  the  human  mind  aspiring  towards  God. 

The  theodicy  is  the  knowledge  of  that  wonderful  process 
of  the  reason  which  soars  towards  God  and  aspires  to  know 
and  prove  his  existence,  nature,  and  attributes. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  shall  realize  later  how  the 
theodicy  sums  up  all  philosophy  in  a  single  question, 


EXPLANATORY.  15 

namely,  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  and  his  attri- 
butes,—  a  question  which  the  readers  of  this  book  will,  I 
hope,  find  neither  barren  nor  commonplace,  and  upon  which 
we  must  at  once  enter. 


Is  it  possible  to  prove  the  existence  of  God  ?  Is  it  essen- 
tial ?  Is  not  the  truth  of  the  existence  of  God  self-evident 
and  indemonstrable  as  an  axiom?  Can  there-  be  atheists? 

It  seems  at  first  that  this  proposition,  God  is,  is  identical 
with  the  similar  proposition,  Being  is.  And  so  it  really  is 
to  all  who  know  the  meaning  of  the  word  God,  since  that 
word  means  "  Him  who  is."  This  statement,  therefore,  is 
one  of  those  which  are  evident  as  soon  as  their  terms  are 
known.  Its  terms  imply  its  truth,  for  the  subject  and  attri- 
bute are  identical ;  and  it  bears  its  certainty  on  its  face,  as 
does  this,  —  The  whole  is  greater  than  a  part. 

But  all  men  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  the  word  God, 
all  not  understanding  that  God  is  none  other  than  He  who 
is.  The  truth  of  God's  existence  is  not  clear  to  all,  and  it 
requires  to  be  proved  from  a  basis  of  universal  ideas.  The 
proposition  which  asserts  it  is  identical,  but  its  identity  is 
not  apparent  to  all  eyes. 

And  in  fact  there  are  atheists.  Atheism,  both  theoretical 
and  practical,  is  a  profound  vice,  —  or  rather,  the  radical  vice 
of  the  heart  and  human  mind.  No  age  has  been  free  from 
it.  Our  own  is  more  fully  infected  by  it  than  we  think. 
Practical  atheism  is  visible  to  every  eye,  and  philosophical 
atheism  is  revealed  under  the  form  of  pantheism.  More  yet, 
express,  exact,  avowed,  and  declared  atheism  has  a  school  of 
its  own ;  and  this  school  of  new  atheism,  more  scientific 
than  the  old  atheism,  is  built  upon  a  foundation  which  it 
calls  Modern  Science. 


16  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

It  is  not  difficult,  in  truth,  to  do  justice  to  this  would-be 
modern  science.  We  shall  prove,  in  the  proper  place,  that  it 
is  nothing  else  than  the  radical  vice  of  the  human  heart  and 
mind  disguised  as  doctrine,  and  that  its  scientific  semblance 
conies  from  the  fact  that  it  applies,  though  in  inverse  order, 
the  true  method  and  fundamental  process  of  reason. 

But  first  let  us  assert  that  the  existence  of  God  can  be 
strictly  proved,  and  that  no  geometrical  theorem  is  more 
certain.  This  is,  moreover,  the  opinion  of  Descartes,  as  well 
as  of  Leibnitz  ;  the  learned  Cardinal  Gerdil  said  the  same. 

We  shall  treat  this  point,  which  implies  all  metaphysics, 
all  morals,  all  logic,  and  all  the  theory  of  the  method,  with 
the  fulness  which  is  deserved  by  this  prime  question  of 
philosophy,  whose  basis  and  summary  it  is. 

II. 

In  the  first  place,  if  there  are  true  proofs  of  the  existence 
of  God,  these  proofs  must  be  within  the  reach  of  all  men ; 
for  the  light  of  God  shines,  and  should  shine,  upon  every 
man  in  this  world. 

Therefore,  to  find  useful  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God, 
we  should  seek  his  origin  and  reality  in  some  ordinary  and 
daily  act  of  the  human  mind ;  and  this  sublime  and  simple 
act  being  found,  it  will  suffice  to  describe  it,  and  translate  it 
into  philosophical  language.  We  shall  then  prove  its  scien- 
tific value. 

Now,  this  ordinary  daily  act  of  the  human  soul,  mind,  and 
heart,  intellect  and  will,  is  no  other  than  the  universal  fact 
of  prayer  ;  and  I  mean,  philosophically  speaking,  by  prayer 
what  Descartes  defines  when  he  says,  "  I  feel  that  I  am  a 
finite  being,  unceasingly  striving  for  and  aspiring  to  some- 
thing better  and  greater  than  I  am."  Prayer  is  the  move- 
ment of  the  soul  from  the  finite  towards  the  infinite. 


EXPLANATORY.  17 

Scorn  of  present  reality,  so  natural  to  man  ;  expectation  of 
an  ideal  future,  so  habitual  to  the  soul ;  instinctive  sense 
of  the  marvellous,  and  presentiment  of  infinity,  —  are  the 
source  of  this  sublime  and  simple  act,  which  proves  God. 

Who  does  not  know  it?  The  soul  of  man,  especially 
when  it  is  pure  and  lofty,  in  its  vigor  and  youth,  conceives 
and  desires  without  bounds  all  the  beauties  and  virtues  of 
which  it  sees  any  trace.  All  boundaries,  all  limits,  all  im- 
perfections, are  destroyed.  Being  is  conceived  in  all  its 
plenitude  ;  the  mind  conceives  of  eternal  love,  happiness 
without  change,  truth  without  shadow,  a  will  stronger  than 
any  obstacle,  strength  and  energy  that  play  with  time  and 
space,  and  of  wonders,  sudden  creations  realized  by  a  word, 
a  gesture,  or  a  wish.  All  these  premonitions  of  the  heart 
of  man,  all  these  golden  dreams  of  childhood,  all  these  in- 
toxications of  ideal  nectar,  imply  a  true  and  strictly  scien- 
tific method.  Analyzed  by  reason,  this  poetry,  this  faith, 
contain  the  strict  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  and  his 
attributes. 

In  fact,  this  is  the  poetic  and  ordinary  process  which, 
with  the  help  of  education  and  tradition,  lifts  the  majority  of 
men  to  the  knowledge  of  God.  The  spectacle  of  the  world, 
the  sense  of  life,  the  sight  of  finished  beings  and  created 
beauties,  when  the  heart  and  imagination  grasp  them  to 
enlarge  and  urge  them  to  infinity,  by  effacing  evil,  bounds, 
and  limits,  that  impulse  of  the  soul  towards  infinity  from 
the  finite,  —  this  it  is  that  gives  men  an  idea  of  God,  a 
natural  knowledge  and  love  of  him. 

And  this  intellectual  and  moral  impulse,  of  which  every 
human  soul  is  capable,  is  the  act  and  the  fundamental  pro- 
cess of  the  life  of  reason  and  the  moral  life.  We  say  that 
the  act  and  fundamental  process  of  a  life  of  reason  and  a 
moral  life  consist,  as  Bossuet  expresses  it,  in  passing  without 
any  circuit  of  reasoning,  although  by  a  very  justifiable  impulse 

2 


18  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

of  the  reason,  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  —  from  the  genu- 
ine finite  being  which  we  are,  which  we  see,  which  we  can  ac- 
tually touch,  to  the  infinite  Being,  really  and  actually  existing, 
which  the  existence  of  the  finite  implies  and  supposes. 

And  while  the  simple,  the  ignorant,  the  humble,  and  the 
young,  by  a  wholly  instinctive  and  poetic  method,  perform 
this  chief  and  necessary  act  of  reason,  this  natural  act  of  the 
soul  is  the  foundation  of  the  most  scientific  of  methods,  and 
all  the  demonstrations  of  the  existence  of  God,  given  us  by 
true  philosophers  of  all  times,  summed  up  and  exactly  de- 
fined by  the  seventeenth  century,  are  but  the  philosophical 
translation  of  the  ordinary  process  which  all  men  employ. 

This  we  shall  show  by  enumerating  and  analyzing  these 
various  demonstrations,  the  entire  substance  of  which  we 
will  afterwards  sum  up,  and  will  prove  their  unerring 
exactness. 

III. 

But  before  entering  into  details  and  studying  these  proofs 
one  by  one,  referring  each  to  its  author,  we  will  set  forth, 
without  going  into  particulars,  the  nature  and  conditions  of 
the  complete  essential  proof,  to  which  all  others  lead  back 
more  or  less  directly,  according  as  they  are  more  or  less 
explicit,  solid,  and  luminous.  What  we  now  simply  state 
will  be  developed  and  demonstrated  later  on. 

We  must  know  that  there  are  two  processes  of  reasoning, 
the  one  as  exact  as  the  other,  —  syllogism  and  induction. 
Syllogism  is  tolerably  familiar.  But  induction  is  not  the 
vague  process  which  it  is  supposed  to  be,  —  it  is  a  precise 
process  ;  it  is  the  chief  process  of  reasoning,  and  has  been 
practised  in  all  ages  by  all  great  minds  as  well  as  by  the 
humblest,  but  it  has  never  yet  been  sufficiently  analyzed 
by  any  one.  We  will  attempt  this  analysis  by  means  of 
logic. 


EXPLANATORY.  19 

These  two  processes  may  also  be  called  the  syllogistic 
process  and  the  dialectic  process.  They  correspond  to  what 
Leibnitz  called  the  logic  of  deduction  and  the  logic  of  inven- 
tion, or  the  analytical  part  and  the  inventive  part  of  logic. 
They  correspond  to  the  two  kinds  of  minds  which  we  find 
among  men,  and  which  we  may  represent  by  Aristotle  and 
Plato.  Aristotle  called  them  syllogism  and  induction  ;  Plato 
calls  them  syllogism  and  dialectic.  The  seventeenth  century 
deserves  the  credit  for  establishing  the  truly  mathematical 
precision  of  the  second  process,  by  bringing  it  into  practical 
use,  as  Leibnitz  says ;  which  was  done  by  the  works  of 
Descartes,  Malebranche,  and  Fdnelon,  and  by  the  great  dis- 
covery of  Leibnitz,  the  invention  of  the  infinitesimal  cal- 
culus, —  a  wonderful  invention,  which  consists  of  actually 
introducing  into  mathematics  this  chief  process  of  reasoning. 

This  process,  which  in  geometry  is  carried  to  mathemati- 
cal infinity,  is  also  carried,  in  metaphysics,  to  the  infinite 
Being,  which  is  God.  Exact  as  geometry,  it  is  also  much 
the  simpler  and  quicker  of  the  two  processes  of  reasoning. 
Its  very  simplicity  and  rapidity  have  hitherto  prevented  any 
complete  analysis  of  it. 

It  consists,  any  degree  of  entity,  beauty,  or  perfection  being 
given, — which  we  always  have  so  soon  as  we  are,  see,  or  think, 
—  it  consists,  we  say,  in  instantly  destroying  in  thought  the 
limits  of  the  finite  being  and  the  imperfect  qualities  which  we 
possess,  or  which  we  see,  in  order  that  we  may  affirm  without 
other  intermediary  the  infinite  existence  of  the  one  Being 
and  his  perfections,  corresponding  to  those  we  see. 

Assuredly  the  process  is  a  simple  one ;  any  one  may  use 
it,  and  the  smallest  minds,  on  certain  points,  employ  it  as 
quickly  as  others :  but  it  is  precise.  This  is  now  proved 
by  the  works  of  the  seventeenth  century,  analyzed  and 
compared. 

This  process  is  not  only  applicable  to  the  proof  of  the 


20  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

existence  of  God,  but  it  leads  up  in  everything  to  principles 
and  ideas ;  and  as  several  philosophers,  who  will  be  quoted 
in  due  time,  declare,  it  is  a  universal  process  of  invention. 

Absolutely  distinct  from  syllogism,  it  is  quite  as  exact ;  it 
alone  gives  the  majors  used  by  syllogism. 

This  process,  like  syllogism,  may  rest  either  upon  an  ab- 
straction or  a  fact,  an  idea  or  a  reality,  upon  a  conception 
which  is  a  priori  true  or  false,  or  upon  an  experience. 

If  the  syllogism  depend  upon  a  simple  possibility,  which 
does  not  exist,  upon  a  chimera,  or  even  on  a  contradiction, 
which  cannot  be  true,  its  deductions  will  be  of  the  nature 
of  the  primary  cause :  a  series  of  non-existent  possibilities, 
or  even  a  series  of  chimeras  or  a  series  of  contradictions 
is  deduced,  sooner  or  later  ending  in  downright  absurdity, 
—  that  is  to  say,  in  a  conspicuous  contradiction.  But  if 
it  rest  upon  a  real  postulate,  derived  from  the  nature  of 
things,  —  as,  for  instance,  Newton's  law,  —  all  the  deduc- 
tions drawn  from  it  will  be  true,  genuine,  and  existent  in 
the  nature  of  things. 

Now,  it  is  precisely  the  same  with  the  other  process. 
Whether  we  take  for  our  starting-point  a  pure  possibility 
which  does  not  exist,  or  a  contradictory  statement,  or  even, 
as  Descartes  says,  a  conception  proceeding  from  nothing, 
which  does  not  and  cannot  exist,  the  assertion  obtained  by 
the  dialectic  process  will  be  a  simple  possibility,  a  chimera, 
or  a  contradiction.  But  if  it  be  based  upon  an  experimental 
postulate,  a  reality,  or  some  actual  and  positive  quality  exist- 
ing in  things,  then  its  results  will  be  as  real  as  the  point  of 
departure,  —  as  real  as  those  of  the  syllogism.  If,  for  in- 
stance, it  depended,  as  in  certain  German  theories,  upon  the 
idea  of  non-being,  it  would  affirm,  as  the  Germans  do,  an 
absolute  non-being,  and  all  the  resultant  absurdities ;  it 
would  thus  plainly  obtain  only  a  chimera  and  a  monster. 
But  if  it  rest  upon  some  conception  of  being,  —  a  conception 


EXPLANATORY.  21 

which  is  clearly  possible,  —  it  asserts  the  possibility  of  an 
infinite  Being ;  if,  moreover,  it  add  to  this  the  experience  of 
any  real  being  whatsoever,  actually  existing,  it  concludes  in 
the  infinite  Being,  no  longer  as  merely  possible,  but  as  really 
and  actually  existing. 

And  these  assertions,  which  proceed  from  finite  reality  to 
infinite  reality,  are  always  true ;  since  in  metaphysics,  as  in 
geometry,  every  positive  finite  has  its  corresponding  infinite. 
We  can  always  go  on  asserting  to  infinity  the  existence  of  any 
real  and  positive  quality,  finite  though  it  be,  which  we  see. 
The  assertion  is  always  true,  in  God.  This  is  because  in 
metaphysics,  as  in  geometry,  as  Leibnitz  observes,  "Finite 
laws  always  hold  good  of  infinity,  and  vice  versa" 

But  if  the  process  de  facto  be  true,  de  facto  again,  all  do 
not  always  carry  it  out.  Just  as  every  mind  does  not  al- 
ways infer  the  consequences  of  principles  with  which  it  is 
familiar,  so,  too,  every  mind  does  not  always  move  from  every 
finite  to  the  corresponding  infinite,  or  from  every  phenom- 
enon to  ideas,  or  from  every  creature  to  God.  Just  as  there 
are  minds  without  any  syllogistic  impulse,  so  too  there  are 
minds  destitute  of  dialectic  force.  There  are  intellects  which 
possess  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  —  neither  deduction 
nor  invention.  All  are  necessarily  deductive  when  they  are 
driven  to  it.  There  is  a  logical  constraint  which  can  force 
any  man  to  see  a  consequence  in  a  principle ;  but  all,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  are  not  necessarily  inventive ;  all  do  not 
possess  the  dialectic  impulse,  —  there  is  no  intellectual  con- 
straint possible  upon  this  point.  The  intellect  may  lose  or 
recover  its  strength  of  impulse  towards  the  infinite.  That 
depends  upon  the  energy,  the  elasticity,  of  the  soul  and 
moral  freedom,  this  impulse  being  alike  and  indissolubly 
intellectual  and  moral ;  and  it  cannot  be  other  than  a  move- 
ment of  the  human  soul  as  a  unity.  The  intellectual  move- 
ment towards  infinity  is  always  true,  always  possible,  since 


22  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

man  is  endowed  with  reason ;  but  as  a  fact,  it  cannot  take 
place  in  the  soul  without  the  corresponding  moral  move- 
ment. This  is  why  diseased  souls  can  never  perform  it, 
even  when  the  words  of  others  assert  it  and  execute  it  in 
their  presence.  A  deduction  presented  from  without  is  not 
always  understood  by  a  mind  but  slightly  developed ;  but  a 
moment  more,  a  moment  of  careful  attention,  will  make  it 
clear.  The  dialectic  passage  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite 
is  still  oftener  overlooked  by  weak  or  diseased  minds;  a 
moment  of  more  active  attention  is  not  enough,  —  a  cure 
and  moral  change  are  requisite. 

This  fact,  but  too  little  noted,  is  most  important.  It  touches 
on  the  bond  and  relation  between  logic  and  morals,  intellect 
and  will,  reason  and  liberty.  There  is  a  bond  between  rea- 
son and  liberty,  —  this  is  unquestionable ;  there  are  opinions 
which  are  entirely  free.  Some  schools  of  philosophy  admit 
that  all  opinions  are  free  and  unbiassed :  this  is  evidently  a 
mistake ;  for  how  can  deduction  be  free  ?  A  syllogistic  con- 
clusion is  inevitable  when  the  primary  causes  are  given. 
But  still  it  is  false  to  say  that  every  true  opinion  is  inevi- 
table. Dialectic  advance  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  and 
the  opinion  which  results,  is  both  true  and  free,  yet  although 
always  true,  is  never  obtained  save  under  conditions  which 
depend  upon  freedom.  The  first  moral  condition  of  the  ex- 
istence of  these  dialectic  decisions  which  proceed  from  every 
finite  to  the  infinite,  is  what  may  be  called  the  sense  of  in- 
finity,—  that  divine  sense  which  is  always  given,  which  is 
the  omnipresent  charm  of  the  Sovereign  Good  for  every  soul. 
Then,  according  to  the  free  reciprocal  adaptation  of  each 
soul  to  this  attraction  of  infinity,  it  pronounces,  or  does 
not  pronounce,  the  true  opinion  which  leads  from  every 
finite  to  infinity.  It  may  even  —  as  the  whole  history  of 
philosophy,  especially  modern  German  philosophy,  proves 
—  pronounce  that  false  opinion  which  leads  from  every 
finite,  in  an  opposite  direction  from  infinity,  to  nothing. 


EXPLANATORY.  23 

The  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  therefore  results  from 
one  of  the  two  processes  essential  to  reason,  but,  as  a  fact,  is 
worked  out  freely,  morally  as  well  as  rationally. 

This,  I  admit,  is  quite  contrary  to  our  wretched  logical 
habits,  which  presuppose  an  absolute  separation  of  logic 
and  morals.  But  this  gratuitous  supposition  might  even  be 
called  strange,  since  it  admits  that  intellect  and  will,  two 
faculties  of  a  single  soul,  have  no  common  root  where  they 
touch ;  this  supposition,  I  say,  is  as  false  as  it  is  strange.  It 
has  been,  it  still  is,  one  of  the  stumbling-blocks  of  philoso- 
phy. It  is  unquestionable  that,  as  a  certain  intellectual 
condition,  and  not  only  a  condition  but  an  act,  a  voluntary 
act,  attention,  is  requisite  to  execute  one  of  the  movements 
of  reason,  to  form  or  to  comprehend  a  syllogism ;  so  too  we 
also  require  a  certain  moral  state,  —  which  we  may  call  a 
right  sense,  —  and  a  voluntary  and  moral  act,  to  understand 
and  execute  the  other  movement  of  reason.  A  right  sense  — 
which  is  moreover  the  same  thing  as  the  divine  sense  —  is 
that  hidden  reason  to 'which  Pascal  refers  when  he  says, 
"  The  heart  has  its  reasons  which  the  reason  does  not  know." 
It  is  this  hidden  reason  which  the  fool  lacks  when  he  says 
in  his  heart,  "  There  is  no  God." 

Such,  then,  is  the  nature,  such  are  the  conditions,  of  the 
true  proof  of  the  existence  of  God. 

In  brief,  the  true  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  is  nothing 
else  but  the  use  of  one  of  the  two  processes  of  reasoning,  — 
the  chief  one,  that  which  gives  the  majors,  and  which  consti- 
tutes the  logic  of  invention. 

Every  application  of  this  process  involves  the  proof  of  the 
existence  of  God. 

Let  us  repeat:  this  process  consists,  starting  from  every 
finite  being  and  every  finite  quality,  in  affirming,  by  the  sup- 
pression of  finite  limits,  the  infinite  Being,  or  the  infinite 
perfections  corresponding  to  the  finite  that  we  see. 


24  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

And  this  assertion  is  always  true,  according  to  the  princi- 
ple laid  down  by  Leibnitz,  that  finite  laws  hold  good  of  in- 
finity, and  vice  versa  ;  in  other  words,  that  the  finite  is  an 
image  of  the  infinite,  —  which  results,  as  Leibnitz  also  re- 
marks, from  the  fact  that  everything  is  governed  by  God, 
who  governs  all  in  conformity  to  himself. 

This  process  is  as  sure  as  geometry,  to  which,  moreover, 
it  is  applied.  This  application  is  known  as  the  infinitesimal 
calculus. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  process  is  never  de  facto  literally 
carried  out,  and  only  reaches  God  by  a  simultaneous  act 
of  intellect  and  will,  reason  and  liberty.  Its  power  in  the 
mind  is  the  divine  sense,  the  sense  of  infinity,  or,  if  you 
will,  the  inevitable  attraction  of  the  Sovereign  Good  for 
every  soul.  But  this  power,  given  to  all,  acts  or  ceases  to 
act,  or  even  changes  its  course,  according  to  the  moral  state 
of  the  soul. 

We  believe  that  we  have  proved  all  this  in  the  totality 
of  the  present  work  in  such  a  manner  that  it  will  henceforth 
be  regarded  as  among  the  truths  acquired  by  philosophy. 

We  may  be  opposed  at  first ;  but  as  all  opposition  will  be 
vain,  we  hope  our  adversaries  will  soon  have  recourse  to  de- 
claring that  these  things  have  been  known  in  every  age, 
particularly  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  that  there  is 
nothing  new  in  what  we  say.  We  shall  hasten  to  agree  to 
this,  merely  reserving  to  ourselves  the  honor  of  having  thrown 
more  vivid  light  upon  this  central  point  of  philosophy,  where 
all  rays  meet. 

This  settled,  let  us  turn  to  details,  and  proceed  to  the  his- 
toric study  of  the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God. 

We  shall  enter  most  minutely  into  this  question,  studying 
in  turn  the  theodicy  of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Saint  Augustine, 
Saint  Anselm,  and  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas ;  then  take  up  the 
theodicy  of  the  seventeenth  century,  treating  of  Descartes, 


EXPLANATORY.  25 

Pascal,  Malebranche,  Fe'nelon,  Bossuet,  Leibnitz,  and  the 
authors  of  two  Latin  Theodicies,  unknown  even  to  the 
trained  public,  which  are  the  two  finest  and  most  complete 
ever  written  in  any  age. 

We  shall  linger  the  more  willingly  upon  this  point,  be- 
cause it  will  at  the  same  time  afford  us  a  study  of  the  his- 
tory of  philosophy. 

The  history  of  the  above-named  philosophers  is  very  nearly 
the  whole  history  of  philosophy.  Now,  we  know  a  philoso- 
pher by  his  theodicy.  The  theodicy  of  a  writer  contains  his 
method,  implies  his  logic  and  his  ethics,  is  his  system  of 
metaphysics  and  his  theory  of  ideas  also,  therefore  his  psy- 
chology. In  this  sense  all  philosophy  may  be  found  in  the 
theodicy. 

In  treating,  therefore,  of  the  theodicy  of  all  the  great  minds, 
each  in  its  turn,  we  give  at  the  same  time  a  summary,  and  a 
brief  history,  of  philosophy. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PLATO'S  THEODICY. 

PLATO  comes  first  in  chronological  order;  this  is  fortu- 
nate. Of  all  men  who  discussed  the  subject  of  God 
previous  to  the  Christian  era,  he  is  the  greatest.  He  has 
been  called  the  divine ;  Bossuet  so  styles  him,  and  this  is  his 
distinguishing  name  among  philosophers.  Moreover,  Plato 
is  the  especial  representative  of  one  of  the  two  processes  of 
human  reason,  —  the  chief  one,  that  which  leads  up  to  God.1 
If  Aristotle  was  the  immortal  and  perfect  lawgiver  for  the 
other  process,  Plato,  without  actually  establishing  the  laws 
of  that  which  forms  his  glory,  —  laws  which  could  not  be  de- 
fined exactly  until  the  seventeenth  century,  —  Plato  at  least 
indicated  them,  and  gave  us,  besides,  the  finest  example  of 
their  use  which  human  reason  in  the  antique  world  produced. 

The  glory  reverted  to  the  school  of  Socrates.  And  why  ? 
Because  the  impulse  of  reason  towards  genuine  infinity  — 
an  impulse  which  constitutes  that  chief  process  to  which  we 
refer,  and  which  gives  us  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  — 
can  only  be  carried  out  de  facto,  in  consequence  of  a  moral 
state,  under  the  impelling  force  of  that  "power"  as  Bossuet 
says,  which  is  the  "  divine  sense ; "  or,  if  you  prefer,  the 
"attraction  of  the  desirable  and  intelligible"  as  Aristotle 
expresses  it. 

Now,  the  Socratic  and  Platonic  school  is  of  all  ancient 
schools  the  most  moral,  and  the  one  which  best  knew,  under- 

1  Janet's  admirable  thesis  on  the  "Dialectic  of  Plato"  should  be  read  on 
this  subject.  This  brilliant  work,  but  too  little  known,  should  be  one  of  the 
first  things  read  by  all  who  desire  to  study  Plato. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  27 

stood,  and  described  the  real  attraction  of  Supreme  Good- 
ness for  the  soul  of  man. 

Socrates  is,  in  fact,  as  modern  sophists  very  aptly  com- 
plain, the  founder  of  moral  philosophy.  His  doctrine,  as 
has  been  well  said,  is  little  more  than  a  theory  of  virtue ; 
"  and  its  only  aim,  according  to  the  best  judges,"  says 
Thomassin,  "  is  to  purify  our  affections  by  means  of  moral- 
ity." l  Plato  therefore  claimed  —  and  this  was  the  root  of 
his  system  —  to  rely  wholly  upon  that  love  of  goodness  and 
that  moral  state  without  which  reason  does  not  apply  the 
dialectic  process  leading  up  to  God.  To  him,  the  beginning 
of  all  things  was  Goodness ;  he  knew  that  Goodness  is  the 
father  of  light,  that  the  action  of  the  mind  which  rises  to 
God  depends  upon  the  forces  of  love,  that  this  process, 
which  he  so  happily  calls  the  "  movement  of  the  soul's 
wings,"  implies  a  moral  state,  an  outburst  of  love  towards 
God,  and  that  the  soul  can  only  put  out  wings  by  dint  of 
virtue. 

This  is  why  Plato  knew  and  practised  more  than  any 
other  man  in  antiquity  the  chief  process  of  reasoning.  This 
is  why  he  knew  and  proved  the  existence  of  the  true  God. 

Plato  knew  that  there  are  two  processes  of  reasoning,  and 
not  merely  one.  He  knew  that  the  most  potent  of  these 
two  processes,  quite  as  exact  as  the  other,  is  the  scientific 
truth  of  which  poetry  is  merely  the  image.  For  this  very 
reason  he  was  a  poet  in  thought  as  well  as  by  nature,  like 
all  philosophers  who  have  made  especial  use  of  the  chief 
process  of  reason.  He  understood  that  very  beautiful  meta- 
phors are  true,  because  they  imply  the  truth  of  the  dialectic 
method,  and  that  this  chief  form  of  philosophical  thought  is, 
in  its  spirit,  like  poetry  itself,  simple,  easy,  and  popular. 
Plato  knew  above  all  —  he  repeats  it  incessantly  —  that 
sensuality  and  passion  are  the  obstacle  to  light  in  the  soul, 

1  Thomassin,  Dogm.  Theol.,  vol.  ii.  chap.  x.  p.  11. 


28  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

and  that  this  obstacle  must  be  overcome  before  we  can  rise 
to  truth  through  reason.  He  knew  that  there  are  two 
courses  open  to  the  soul  and  its  love,  one  of  which  leads  the 
mind  to  illusion  and  error,  the  other  to  truth  ;  that  philoso- 
phy is  indivisibly  a  work  of  reason  and  freedom,  of  intellect 
and  will,  —  far  more,  a  work  of  sacrifice  and  virtue.  It  •  is 
for  this  reason  that  he  so  constantly  expounds  the  wonderful 
Socratic  saying  :  "  To  philosophize  is  to  learn  how  to  die." 

And  lastly,  Plato  knew  that  there  are  three  soul-spheres, 
three  lives,  in  man ;  and  he  states  this  as  clearly  as  Pascal. 
He  describes  the  highest  of  the  three  as  the  contact  of  God 
with  the  roots  of  the  soul ;  and  this  divinity l  in  the  soul, 
when  the  obstacle  of  vice  is  removed,  is  the  power  that  lifts 
the  reason  to  eternal  truths.  We  must  acknowlege  that  true 
philosophy  is  not,  in  Plato,  unmixed  with  error,  —  that  is 
only  given  to  Christians ;  but  he  possessed  all  philosophy, 
all  its  essential  features,  all  its  fundamental  elements. 

Plato  has  all  the  characteristics  of  true  philosophic  ge- 
nius ;  he  is  the  most  brilliant  instance  in  antiquity  of 
those  perfect  minds  which,  as  has  been  well  said,  use  alike 
their  reason  and  their  heart,  their  learning  and  their  poetry, 
their  feet  and  their  wings,  to  attain  to  truth.  It  therefore 
belonged  to  him  to  give  in  the  ancient  world  the  great  proof 
of  the  existence  of  God.  Let  us  see  if  he  succeeded. 


II. 

Let  us  first  recall  the  nature  of  the  process  that  gives  the 
true  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  arid  his  attributes. 

Those  visible  things  being  given  which  beget  one  another, 
which  are  born  and  die,  which  change  and  which  pass  away, 
which  might  not  exist,  which  are  limited  and  imperfect,  — 
the  mind  should  exceed  these  finite  and  visible  beings,  and 

1  T6  6etoi>. 


PLATO'S  THEODICY.  29 

rise  through  their  images  to  the  eternal,  invisible,  immu- 
table ideas  which  correspond  to  the  images.  We  should  rise 
from  every  finite  object  to  the  corresponding  infinite.  We 
shall  see  later,  through  the  aid  of  geometry  itself,  that  this 
is  no  vague  mental  action,  but  an  exact  process.  This 
process  destroys  in  thought  the  limits  of  finite  being,  and 
the  imperfections  of  the  qualities  revealed  to  it  by  things, 
and  asserts  that  the  idea  formed  in  our  mind  by  this  sup- 
pression of  limits  and  defects,  this  idea  of  infinite  being  and 
infinite  perfection,  corresponds  to  a  reality  truer,  more  ac- 
tual, than  the  very  object  which  we  touch,  and  whence 
dialectic  reasoning  starts.  It  asserts  that  all  these  supreme 
realities  are  in  God,  and  are  God.  Such  is,  at  least,  the  duty 
of  the  mind  in  the  light  of  reason  ;  and,  in  fact,  the  mind 
fulfils  this  duty  whenever  the  moral  obstacle  that  impedes 
its  progress  is  removed. 

Did  Plato  fully  understand  this  process  ?  Did  he  state  lit- 
erally, did  he  know  that  the  sum  total  of  immutable,  eternal, 
infinite  ideas  is  in  God, — is  the  Word  of  God,  which  is  God  ? 
Some  deny  this ;  we  believe  that  we  should  affirm  it,  with 
Saint  Augustine,  Bossuet,  Leibnitz,  and  Fe*nelon. 

In  any  case,  whether  Plato  himself  knew  or  did  not  know 
it,  —  and  I  believe  that  he  knew  it,  —  his  dialectic  process 
actually  ends  in  God,  in  the  infinite.  This  is  the  nature  and 
the  law  of  the  process.  Plato  really  made  that  supreme  use 
of  reason  which  consists  in  passing  by  a  simple  impulse, 
which  is  at  the  same  time  scholarly  and  systematic,  from 
everything  to  God  ;  from  the  finite,  the  variable,  and  the 
uncertain  to  the  infinite,  immutable,  and  inevitable. 

My  readers  may  judge  of  this  by  the  brief  statement 
which  follows,  and  which  will  be  verified  later  by  quotations 
from  the  text. 

There  is  first  in  the  soul  a  gift  of  God,  which  results  from 
contact  with  God,  and  which  is  that  voice,  that  inner  tute- 


30  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

lary  spirit  given  by  God  to  every  soul.  This  divine  element, 
this  sense  of  immortality  and  divinity,  is  the  prime  and 
essential  element,  the  principle  and  very  root  of  the  soul,  in 
its  triple  life.  This  is  the  power  which  proceeds  from  God 
and  leads  us  up  to  God.  Now,  man  does  not  rise  to  God  by 
the  mind  alone,  by  the  reason  taken  in  that  abstract  sense 
in  which  sophists  understand  it ;  man  rises  to  the  knowledge 
of  God  only  through  his  whole  soul;  first  by  his  will,  by 
doing  good,  which  directs  the  eye  where  it  should  look, 
then  purifies  it,  makes  it  capable*  of  seeing.  Knowledge  of 
God  implies  a  free  moral  element.  The  part  of  the  will  con- 
sists in  conquering  those  moral  obstacles  which  prevent  us 
from  developing  the  divine  sense  within  us,  or  which  destroy 
it.  This  divine  sense  is  the  condition,  founded  on  expe- 
rience, of  a  knowledge  of  God.  Such  is  the  moral  part  of 
the  process  that  leads  us  up  to  God. 

The  intellectual  and  logical  part  is  properly  the  dialectic. 
Dialectic  is  the  process  which  advances,  starting  from  this 
visible  world,  to  the  idea  of  Being  itself,  Goodness  itself, — 
absolute  Being  and  Goodness.  Thus  dialectic,  whose  motive- 
power,  principle,  and  force  lie  in  the  divine  sense  set  free 
and  made  active  by  virtue,  also  relies  in  its  action  upon  the 
data  of  the  visible  world,  which  stimulate  the  mind,  both  by 
likeness  and  contrast,  to  recall  the  supreme  object,  wholly 
different  from  these  as  it  is,  of  which  they  are  but  the 
images.  Dialectic  progress  consists  in  never  pausing  until 
Being  itself,  the  Supreme  Good  which  is,  is  attained.  Bea- 
son  starts  from  sensible  things,  as  a  conditional  and  essential 
point  of  departure  ;  but  it  goes  beyond  and  aside  from  these 
sensible  postulates,  which  stimulate  it  to  recall  intelligible 
things,  seeing  their  unlikeness  to  the  intelligible.  From 
these  postulates  it  passes  to  the  essential  ideas  which  our 
reason  implies,  such  as  geometric  truths,  which  are,  as  Plato 
frequently  repeats  with  a  depth  of  meaning  which  is  but  too 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  31 

seldom  understood,  shadows  of  the  light  of  God.     From 
these  shadows  it  learns  to  infer  the  existence  of  the  sun. 
Let  us  show  all  this  by  quotations. 

III. 

In  the  first  place,  the  most  important  of  philosophical 
facts  —  that  central  spring  of  the  moral  and  rational  life 
which  we  call  the  divine  sense,  and  which  is  the  real  source 
of  the  proof  of  God's  existence  —  was  so  familiar  to  Socrates 
and  Plato,  and  was  taught  by  them  with  such  full  con- 
viction, in  so  concrete  a  form,  that  it  was  this  very  thing 
which  produced  the  misunderstanding  relative  to  the  daemon 
of  Socrates.  Plato  explains  the  meaning  of  this  word  in  the 
most  philosophic  manner  when  he  shows  that  this  daemon 
was  only  the  voice  of  conscience,  the  innate  love  of  God. 

In  the  Apology,  Plato  puts  these  words  into  the  mouth  of 
Socrates :  "  The  cause  of  all  is  merely  what  you  have  often 
heard  me  say, '  There  is  a  divine  will  which  speaks  to  me '  ... 
(Qeibv  TI  fcai  ^aifioviov).  •  I  have  heard  this  voice  from  my 
youth  up.  .  .  ."  This  voice  is  that  "  of  God,  which  orders  rne 
to  live  by  seeking  wisdom  and  a  knowledge  of  myself.  .  .  . 
I  ought  then  rather  to  obey  God  than  you,  0  Athenians ! " 
It  is  clear  that  by  daemon  (Scupoviov)  Socrates  here  under- 
stands the  voice  of  God. 

Cicero  understands  it  in  the  same  way  when  he  asserts 
that  "Socrates'  daemon  is  that  something  divine  which  checked 
him,  and  which  he  always  obeyed." 

The  dying  Socrates  said :  "  Let  us  go  whither  God  leads  ; " 
and  he  obeyed  that  divine  voice  even  in  death.  Which 
suggests  to  a  learned  author  the  following  thoughts :  "  That 
God  was  the  voice  which  rang  in  his  innermost  soul,  that 
light  which  illumined  his  intellect  and  declared  to  him  what 
he  was  to  do.  It  is  what  is  commonly  known  as  Socrates' 


32  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

daemon.  .  .  .  Socrates  frequently  refers  to  it  as  to  a  sort  of 
spiritual  director,  sometimes  calling  it  daemon,  and  sometimes 
God.  He  always  seems  to  take  it  seriously,  especially  here, 
where  he  relies  upon  it  both  for  life  and  death.  According 
to  some,  Socrates  understood  by  this  the  true  God.  Others 
are  of  a  different  opinion."  Saint  Justin  has  no  doubt  about 
it ;  Saint  Augustine  hesitates. 

Plato,  moreover,  in  his  Timseus,  explains  it  in  a  way  which, 
as  it  seems  to  us,  leaves  no  room  for  contradiction.  We  will 
go  into  the  details  of  this  explanation,  because  it  leads  us 
away  from  the  incidental  question  of  Socrates'  da?mon,  and 
shows  us  what  may  be  called  the  heart  of  dialectic,  the 
centre  of  Plato's  philosophy,  theology,  and  morals,  the  true 
power  upon  which  Platonism  depends  to  prove  the  existence 
of  God,  that  motive  power  which  we  have  called  the  divine 
sense. 

In  his  fine  close  to  Timseus,  Plato  expresses  himself  as 
follows :  — 

"  We  have  already  said  that  the  soul  possesses  a  triple  life,  each 
part  of  which  has  its  place  and  its  distinct  action.  .  .  .  Now,  you 
must  know  touching  the  chief  of  these  three  lives,  that  it  is  the 
dcemon  which  God  has  given  to  every  man.  That  part  of  the  soul 
is  that  which  occupies,  as  they  say,  the  highest  realm  within  us, 
and  which,  through  its  celestial  parentage,  lifts  us  from  the  earth 
and  makes  her  the  fruit  of  heaven  rather  than  of  earth, —  which  is 
profoundly  true ;  for  at  that  point  which  is  the  very  origin  of  our 
soul,  there  the  divine  holds  linked  to  it  our  root,  our  life  principle, 
and  uplifts  the  whole  man."  a 

Nothing  can  be  plainer ;  the  word  dcemon  (Sai'fi&v)  means 
precisely  the  divine  sense  in  the  soul,  that  point  at  which 
God  touches  us,  the  point  which  is  our  root,  our  origin,  our 
source  (Trpeor??  <£vo-t?,  pi£a) ;  that  point,  as  Plato  admirably 
expresses  it,  whereby  God  holds  us  linked  to  him  (TO  Oelov 
rrjv  K€(j)a\r)v  /cat  pi^av  fjp&v  avaKpepavvvv). 
1  Timseus,  89,  90. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  33 

It  clearly  results  from  these  quotations  that,  according 
to  Plato,  there  are  in  man  not  three  souls,  as  he  is  some- 
times made  to  say,  but  there  are  in  the  soul  three  regions, 
three  parts,  three  lives,  —  what  matters  the  word,  —  the 
highest  of  which  is  at  the  very  root  of  the  soul ;  that  con- 
tact with  God  which  links  us  to  him  and  lifts  us  to  heaven, 
and  that  it  is  the  same  thing  which  Socrates  called  his 
divine  voice  and  his  daemon.1 

This  triple  life  pointed  out  by  Plato  in  the  soul,  corre- 
sponds to  the  three  worlds  mentioned  by  Pascal,  —  the  ma- 
terial world,  the  spiritual  world,  and  the  divine  world,  which 
is  God ;  a  triple  life,  which  brings  us  into  relation  with  nature 
through  sensation,  with  the  soul  through  the  inner  sense, 
with  God  through  the  divine  sense ;  the  triple  life  known 
and  described  by  Christian  mystics  when  they  say,  "  Let  us 
turn  from  the  outward  inward,  and  from  the  inward  let  us 

1  The  misunderstanding  in  regard  to  the  three  souls  must  be  made  clear  by 
these  quotations.  We  read  in  the  passage  quoted  from  Timseus,  rpia  fax?,* 
etdvj,  and  not  rpia  fax&v  etSrj.  Farther  on  we  read  rofis  rpets  rbirovs  rrjs  faxw> 
the  three  regions  of  the  soul.  Elsewhere  Plato  speaks  of  the  parts  of  the  soul, 
two  of  which,  particularly,  are  distinct,  the  one  rational,  \oyi<TTiK&v  vovs, 
which  he  also  calls  elsewhere,  apxty  fax?!*  dBdvarov  (Timseus) ;  the  other  the 
irrational,  or  fleshly,  aXoyia-riK 'jv,  or  €irit}v/j.'r]TiK6i>,  which  are  united  by  the  BV/J.OS 
or  Bv/jLoeidts  (De  Rep.  IV.).  This  distinction  doubtless  refers  to  that  one  of  the 
three  faculties,  knowledge,  will,  and  feeling,  which  he  establishes  in  the  same 
book  of  the  Republic.  Plato  had  no  more  faith  in  three  souls  than  Saint 
Thomas,  who  nevertheless  makes  a  distinction  between  the  rational  soul,  the 
sensitive  soul,  and  the  vegetative  soul. 

Moreover,  in  Plato,  etSos  is  often  used  as  a  synonym  for  /ufyos ;  we  often 
find  eI5os  Kai  ^pos  —  eidrj  nal  n^py. 

Cicero  did  not  believe  that  Plato  spoke  of  several  souls,  but  of  several 
spheres  of  the  soul :  Parfcs  animi,  secundnm  Platonem. 

As  for  Aristotle,  in  his  "  Book  of  the  Virtues  and  Vices,"  in  the  beginning, 
he  says  (Bekker's  edition,  page  1249):  TpijuepoOs  5£  rijs  faxw  XajM/UwopAnfi 
KO.TO.  IlXdrwra,  TOV  pfv  XoyurriKOv  dper^i  tanv  i)  Qpbvyffis,  TOV  dt  0vfj.o€iSovs  ij 
re  TrppoTTjs  /ecu  ij  dvSpcia,  TOV  5t  liri6vfjt.r}TiKov  tf  re  GuQpofftivti  Ka.1  i]  £y/cpareia, 
6'\?7S  5£  XT;?  \f/vx?i*  7?  TC  6i/cato<7i/j'?7.  Aristotle  therefore  admits  here,  with  Plato, 
that  there  are  these  three  parts  of  the  soul,  and  names  them  as  he  does,  and 
in  his  book  on  the  Soul  he  none  the  less  maintains  the  unity  of  the  soul 
(P-  411). 

3 


84  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

mount  to  higher  things ; "  the  triple  life  which  one  of  the 
deepest  thinkers  of  this  century,  Maine  de  Biran,  rediscovered 
in  the  soul  by  his  persistent  analysis,  in  spite  of  the  prejudi- 
ces of  his  starting-point,  which  admitted  of  but  one. 

And  when  Plato  speaks  of  the  highest  of  the  three  (fcvpiw- 
rarov  -^U^T)?  eZSo?),  that  which  he  calls  divine  (TO  delov),  and 
elsewhere  the  immortal  principle  of  the  soul  (apxyv  ^v^s 
aOdvarov),  when  he  assigns  it  an  especial  place  and  habita- 
tion, at  the  very  root  (p%a)  where  God  holds  us  linked  to 
himself  (TO  delov  avaKpefiavvvv),  whence  the  first  genesis  of 
the  soul  proceeds  (e/ceWev  o6ev  rj  irpwrif]  TT}?  tyv%f)s  <yeve<Ti<$ 
e(f>v),  Plato  then  speaks  like  Bossuet,  who,  pointing  out 
this  particular  region  of  the  soul,  this  inner  sanctuary,  ex- 
claims, "  Hearken  in  thy  innermost  soul ;  hearken  in  that 
place  where  the  truth  makes  itself  heard,  where  pure  and 
simple  ideas  are  found."  And  elsewhere,  after  saying,  "  The 
soul  therefore  is  made  for  God,  it  is  to  him  that  it  should 
ever  be  conjoined  and  as  it  were  linked,  through  its  knowl- 
edge and  affection,"  Bossuet  speaks  of  "  a  spot  in  the  soul  so 
deep  and  so  retired  that  the  senses  do  not  suspect  its  ex- 
istence, it  is  so  remote  from  their  domain  !  " 

Light  is  also  thrown  upon  all  this  in  the  first  Alcibiades, 
when  he  is  advised  by  the  philosopher,  if  he  would  know  his 
soul,  to  look  into  that  place  in  the  soul  where  especially 
resides  the  virtue  of  the  soul,  wisdom,  that  is  to  say,  the 
divine  element  of  the  soul ;  then  to  consider  the  object  itself, 
of  which  this  part  of  the  soul  is  the  image,  in  God.1  For  we 
can  never  know  ourselves  if  we  look  into  that  part  of  the 
soul  which  is  all  shadow,  and  where  God  is  not2  (et?  TO  aOeov 
KOI  o-Koreivov).  We  must  look  into  the  divine  part ;  and 
that  part  of  the  soul  is  to  the  soul  what  the  pupil  is  to  the 
eye,  —  the  very  centre,  the  primary  sense,  the  channel  itself 
of  vision.3  And  it  is  by  looking  into  this  place  in  the  soul, 

i  Alcibiades,  I.  133  C.  2  Ibid.,  134  E.  8  Ibid.,  133  B,  134  D. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  35 


where   light    and    divinity   dwell   (et?    TO    Oeiov    /cal 
ov)  ;  that  the  soul  unfolds  winged  love  within  itself 


Thus,  finally,  it  is  clear  that,  according  to  Plato,  there  is  a 
region  in  the  soul,  a  central  point  of  the  soul,  which  he  calls 
its  root,  its  primary  cause,  its  origin,  and  that  this  point  is 
divine  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  contains  a  gift  which  God  has  be- 
stowed on  every  man,  by  touching  him  at  that  point,  and 
linking  him  to  himself. 

Whether  we  call  this  divine  attribute  divine  spirit,  or 
divine  sense,  or  the  voice  of  conscience,  or  the  attraction  of 
supreme  goodness,  attraction  of  the  desirable  and  intelligible, 
innate  love  of  beatitude,  innate  idea  of  justice  and  injustice, 
natural  law  written  on  the  heart,  whatever  name  we  give  to 
this  first,  chief  fact  of  all  philosophy,  which  results  'from  the 
fact  that  the  soul  only  is  and  exists  because  God  is  and  touches 
it,  —  it  will  always  be  true  that  this  divine  attribute,  peculiar 
to  all  men,  is  the  principle  and  power  which  give  its  im- 
pulse to  the  mind  as  well  as  to  the  whole  soul,  in  all  its 
aspirations  towards  God. 

This  Plato  establishes  in  every  possible  way. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  state  the  use  which  should  be,  in 
his  opinion,  made  of  this  attribute. 

IV. 

This  divine  attribute  is  the  first  cause  of  every  movement 
of  the  mind  towards  God.  The  secondary  cause  is  man's 
attempt  to  purify  his  soul,  and  thus  remove  the  obstacle 
which  interferes  with  the  action  of  that  force  which  God 
has  given  us. 

"  Knowledge,"  says  Plato,  "  is  not  what  some  imagine  when 
they  declare  that  they  will  give  it  to  a  mind  which  has  it  not, 

*  Alcibiades,  I.  135  E. 


36  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

which  would  be  like  giving  sight  to  a  blind  man.  This  is  a  great 
mistake.  There  is  within  us  a  force,  there  is  in  every  mind  an 
organ,  by  means  of  which  every  man  may  acquire  knowledge.  We 
must  treat  this  organ  as  we  should  the  eye,  were  it  impossible  to 
turn  it  away  from  darkness  to  the  light,  save  by  employing  our 
whole  body,  —  we  must  turn  away  our  reason  with  our  whole  soul ; 
we  must  turn  it  away  from  the  things  which  pass,  to  the  One 
Being,  and  lift  our  spiritual  vision  to  that  radiant  centre  of  Being 
which  we  call  Goodness.1  Instruction  can  only  teach  us  how  to 
direct  the  mind,  and  to  turn  its  attention  easily  and  effectually 
towards  the  light;  education  does  not  give  us  sight,  it  merely 
strives  to  direct  in  the  right  way  the  sight  which  already  exists, 
but  which  is  turned  in  the  wrong  direction,  and  does  not  look 
where  it  should  look. 

"  There  are,  in  the  soul,  qualities  which  may  be  acquired  by 
exercise  and  habit,  as  the  body  acquires  certain  powers  and  cer- 
tain habits.  But  reason  shows  its  divine  origin,  and  proves  that 
it  comes  from  something  higher  than  ourselves,  in  that  it  never 
loses  its  power,  but  becomes  useful  or  injurious,  according  to  the 
way  in  which  we  use  it.2  Have  you  never  noticed  how  quickly 
and  clearly  the  small  soul  of  the  wicked  grasps  the  things  upon 
which  it  is  bent,  and  what  power  it  acquires  in  so  doing1?  It  sees 
very  plainly,  only  it  chooses  to.  direct  its  vision  to  evil  things. 
But  take  those  same  souls  in  infancy,  cut  away  and  prune  all  the 
growth  of  passions  akin  to  the  flesh ;  set  them  free  from  those 
heavy  clods  which  cling  to  the  pleasures  of  the  table  and  similar 
delights ;  take  away  that  weight  which  drags  the  mental  vision 
down  to  everything  which  is  low.  Instantly,  in  that  same  soul, 
the  eye,  set  free,  turns  towards  realities,  and  sees  them  as  clearly 
as  it  now  sees  those  things  which  absorb  it."3 

We  must  therefore  purify  the  whole  soul,  if  we  wish  our 
life  and  its  attention  to  be  turned  and  lifted  towards  its  high- 
est region,  where  the  divine  sense  dwells.  Those  who  do  not 
purify  themselves,  remain  in  the  lowest  of  the  three  regions 
of  the  soul,  rise  from  there  towards  the  middle  realm,  again 
sink  back  into  the  lowest,  and  thus  spend  their  lives  in  this 

1  De  Rep.,  518  C.  2  Ibid.,  518  E.  3  Ibid.,  519  B. 


PLATO'S  THEODICY-  37 

oscillation  between  the  carnal  and  the   passional,  without 
ever  rising  to  that  portion  of  the  soul  which  God  inhabits. 

"The  man  without  wisdom  and  without  virtue,1  constantly  a 
prey  to  and  identified  with  all  his  fleshly  appetites,  necessarily 
falls  into  the  lower  region,  rises  from  that  to  the  middle  portion, 
to  wander  thus  his  whole  life  long  between  the  two  ;  but  to  pass 
through  both  these  realms,  to  rise,  indeed,  whether  by  the  eye 
alone  or  by  his  life,  towards  that  which  is  truly  high,  is  a  thing 
which  he  cannot  do." 

To  attain,  therefore,  by  the  eye  or  by  the  life  to  that  part 
of  the  soul  where  the  divine  sense  dwells,  the  source  of  our 
knowledge  of  God,  when  we  carry  it  out  in  our  life  and 
pierce  it  with  our  eye,  we  must  first  overcome  the  moral 
obstacle. 

"  He  who  surrenders  himself  to  the  double  slavery  of  the  world 
and  the  flesh  (eVe^v/xtas  rj  <£iA.ov€t/a'as,  the  carnal  and  the  passional), 
can  never  have  other  than  mortal  thoughts  (Soy/xora 


We  must  therefore  overcome  the  moral  obstacle  by  dint 
of  virtue,  and  yield  to  the  action  of  the  divine  power  which 
directs  our  thoughts  towards  immortality  and  divinity. 

Let  us  quote  the  whole  of  that  magnificent  passage  in 
which  Plato  teaches  man  how  to  cultivate  in  himself  the 
divine  sense,  that  he  may  rise  to  immortality  and  God,  alike 
in  thought  and  in  life,  —  things  which  Socrates  and  Plato 
do  not  separate:  — 

"He  who,  for  love  of  the  truth,  strives  to  develop  within  him  a 
sense  of  the  immortal  and  divine  (yeyiyxi/aoTxeVu)  <f>povtlv  ptv  aOdvara 
Kat  0€ia),  that  man  must  needs  attain  immortality,  in  so  far  as  hu- 
man nature  is  capable  thereof;  and  since  he  has  cultivated  naught 
save  the  divine  (TO  Otlov)  within  him,  and  has  fed  the  Divine  Spirit 
in  his  soul  (Scu/xoi/a),  which  dwells  there,  he  must  reach  supreme 
felicity. 

1  De  Rep.,  586.  2  Timseus,  90. 


38  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

"  Now,  every  life  is  nourished  by  its  own  proper  food,  and  by 
the  movement  which  is  adapted  to  it.  But  universal  thoughts  and 
movements  are  the  natural  movements  of  the  divine  within  us. 
They  are  the  thoughts  and  actions  to  which  every  man  should  con- 
form ;  all  should  labor  to  correct,  by  contemplation  of  the  harmony 
and  the  actions  of  the  whole,  those  particular  and  irregular  acts 
which  the  flesh  inspires  in  the  centre  of  our  soul,  to  the  end  that 
the  beholder,  becoming  like  the  object  beheld,  resumes  his  original 
nature,  becomes  fit  to  possess  at  last  the  perfect  life  which  God 
offers  to  man  both  now  and  forever."1 

Thus  Plato  asserts  that  there  is  in  every  man's  soul  a  di- 
vine contact  at  that  point  where  our  soul  is  linked  to  God. 
This  point  is  the  root,  the  primary  cause,  the  origin  of  our 
soul.  Of  the  three  lives  which  exist  in  our  soul,  that  which 
God  himself  maintains  in  this  part  of  the  soul  is  plainly  the 
chief,  and  should  direct  and  lift  the  entire  man  towards  di- 
vinity, towards  immortality,  towards  God,  in  both  life  and 
thought. 

But,  moreover,  Plato  here  establishes  the  fact,  which,  ap- 
parent though  it  be,  psychology,  with  us,  so  often  refuses  to 
note,  the  fact  of  the  native  lawlessness  to  which  we  are  born. 
That  is  to  say,  that  there  is  really  an  obstacle  to  the  action 
of  that  divine  power  which  labors  to  lift  us  to  God. 

This  obstacle  is  the  double  vice,  which  Plato  calls  the  lust 
of  the  flesh  and  anger,  which  is  to  say,  pride  and  sensuality, 
—  a  double  form  of  selfishness. 

The  condition  upon  which  we  may  rise  to  God,  in  life  or 
in  thought,  is  that  we  conquer  this  obstacle. 

The  obstacle  conquered,  it  at  once  follows  that  man  de- 
velops within  him  the  sense  of  immortality  and  divinity,  and 
attains  to  truth. 

Truth  leads  bim  to  immortality  and  happiness. 

We  reach  this  end  by  struggling  against  the  innate  law- 
lessness of  our  own  thoughts  and  actions,  by  allying  ourselves 

1  Timseus,  90. 


PLATO'S  THEODICY.  39 

to  universal  thought  and  action,  by  contemplating  that  uni- 
versal which  is  God,  by  becoming  like  unto  God,  who  gives 
us  immortality. 

Thus,  so  far  we  clearly  perceive  the  Platonic  procedure ; 
we  have,  first,  a  divine  attribute  within  us,  the  primary  cause 
and  motive  spring  of  every  impulse  towards  God.  We  have, 
next,  on  the  part  of  man,  moral  strength,  which  breaks,  by 
dint  of  virtue  and  sacrifice,  the  shackles  that  hinder  that 
impulse.  This  is  the  moral  side  of  the  dialectic  process. 
Let  us  now  turn  to  its  logical  side. 

V. 

The  mind  has  a  starting-point  for  every  inquiry.  This 
starting-point  is  not  always  a  principle  of  deduction,  far 
from  it.  Where  is  the  human  mind  first  placed?  Conse- 
quently, whence  does  it  ordinarily  start  ?  The  spectacle  of 
nature.  It  sees  changes,  birth  and  death.  Assuredly  it  is 
not  from  this  starting-point,  taken  as  a  principle  of  deduc- 
tion, that  it  will  derive  by  syllogism  the  knowledge  of  God. 
But  by  reason  of  these  things  it  will  think  of  God ;  it  emerges, 
on  the  contrary,  from  these  things  to  find  God.1  It  certainly 
starts  from  the  spectacle  of  visible  things.  "  It  is  with  the 
senses,  not  elsewhere,  that  we  begin ;  it  is  with  sight,  touch, 
or  some  other  sense;  it  cannot  be  otherwise."2  But  how  can 
all  these  transitory  things  lift  us  to  God  ?  Certainly  not  by 
their  identity  with  God.  Is  it  by  their  likeness  to  God  ?  Yes, 
but  it  is  quite  as  much  by  their  difference  and  their  contrast 
with  his  eternal  nature.  "  We  see  all  these  things  striving  to 
resemble  him,  yet  remaining  ever  remote  from  him."3  And 
these  likenesses  and  contrasts  alike  remind  us  of  him.  You 
behold  one  thing,  and  in  it  you  comprehend  another.  Whether 
this  be  due  to  likeness  or  to  contrast,  it  is  the  object  seen 

1  Rep.,  vii.  525.  2  Phaedo,  75.  8  Ibid.,  75. 


40  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

that  calls  up  the  memory.1  If  we  see,  if  we  hear,  if  we  per- 
ceive any  object  through  any  sense,  and  if,  at  the  same  time, 
besides  seeing  that  object,  we  conceive  another,  the  idea  of 
which  is  not  the  same,  but  wholly  different,  should  we  not 
say  that  the  second  object,  to  the  idea  of  which  we  have  at- 
tained, is  a  memory  suggested  by  the  first?2  A  man  and  a 
lyre  are  not  the  same  thing.  And  yet  those  who  love,  recall 
the  loved  object  if  they  see  the  lyre  which  he  has  touched. 
Such  is  reminiscence.3 

"  There  is  an  element  in  sense,  impressions  of  which  in  no  way 
stimulate  the  intellect,  because  it  stops  at  the  senses  which  are 
capable  of  judging  it;  and  there  is  another  element  which  does, 
on  the  contrary,  stimulate  the  intellect,  the  senses  being  unable 
to  deal  with  it."4 

•  "  The  sensations  which  stimulate  the  intellect  are  those  which 
imply  both  likeness  and  contrast;5  as,  for  instance,  when  the 
sight  of  a  certain  number  of  objects  awakens  in  us  the  idea  of 
unity  and  that  of  infinite  quantity."6 

"It  is  upon  these  attributes  —  those  which  stimulate  the  intel- 
lect—  that  the  process  rests  (/xa0>7/xa)  which  lifts  us  to  the  one 
Being,  and  which  almost  no  one  uses  properly '."* 

VI. 

Plato  gives  a  full  account  of  this  process  in  the  closing 
pages  of  the  sixth  book  of  the  Eepublic,  which,  I  think,  has 
never  been  fully  understood. 

In  this  statement  of  logic  as  he  understands  it,  Plato 
defines  exactly  the  two  processes  of  reasoning,  one  of  which 
takes  its  starting-point  (vTroOeo-is) 8  as  its  primary  source 
(ap%??),  and  deduces  consequences  from  it ;  the  other  ad- 
vances from  its  point  of  departure  to  a  universal  principle 

1  Phsdo,  74.  *  De  Rep.,  523  B.  7  Ibid.,  522,  523. 

2  Ibid.,  73  C.  6  Ibid.,  523.  8  Ibid.,  510  et  seq. 
«  Ibid.,  73  D.                    6  ibid.,  525. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  41 

which  is  not  contained  in  it  (eV  ap%r)v  avwiroOerov  ef  VTTO- 
Qeo-eax;  lovcra).  One  is  clearly  the  law  of  syllogism;  he 
calls  the  other  the  dialectic  process  (iropeia  SiaXeKTi/crj). 
The  first  process,  he  says,  is  that  of  geometry  ;  the  second  is 
that  of  true  philosophy.1 

Geometricians  take  their  definitions  as  their  starting-point 
(Troirjo-d/jLevoi  V7ro0e(reis  avra).  These  points  of  departure 
they  take  as  principles,  —  principles  of  deduction  from  which 
they  derive  all  the  rest  by  means  of  inference  and  manifest 
identity  (eV  TOVTWV  8'  dp^o^evoL  rd  XOLTTO,  ij&rj  SiegLovres 

T6\6VTO)(TiV     6yL60\070U/Z6Z/0?). 

Yet  again,  this  process,  syllogistic  deduction,  does  not  go 
back  to  the  origin  of  things  (OVK  eV  dp^hv  lovcrav) ;  evi- 
dently it  can  never  rise  above  its  starting-point,  since  it 
deduces  by  means  of  identity  (eo?  ov  ^vva^vrjv  TU>V  viro- 
Oea-ewv  avwrepw  eicftaiveiv). 

The  other,  on  the  contrary,  rises  above  its  starting-point 
(eV  <ipx*)v  avwiroOerov  ef  vTrodecrecos  lovcra).  It  does  not 
take  its  starting-point  as  its  primary  source  (ra?  vTroQea-eis 
TToiovfjievos  OVK  a/o^a?) ;  it  only  takes  it  as  a  fulcrum  and 
to  stimulate  its  flight  (olov  eV^acrei?  re  ical  op/ia?).  It 
speeds  from  this  to  the  universal  principle  absolutely  out- 
side and  above  the  point  of  departure  (^e-^pi  rov  dwiro- 
Berov  €7rl  rrjv  rov  Trai^ro?  dpx*)v  M*v)« 

Afterwards  only,  it  descends  through  inference  to  all 
which  that  principle  touches  and  includes,  once  it  possesses 
it  (a\JrayLtez>o<?  aur%,  Trd\iv  av  e^6yLtez/09  TWV  eiceivr}^  e^oyLteVwi/, 
oi/rct)?  eVt  T€\€vrrjv  KarafBaivrj). 

Such  are  actually  the  two  eternal  processes  of  reasoning, 
the  two  divisions  of  logic,  one  of  which  may  be  called  the 
logic  of  deduction,  the  other  the  logic  of  invention;  or 
again,  the  one  immanent  logic,  and  the  other  transcendent 
logic. 

1  Geometry  had  not  then  be^n  developed  through  the  infinitesimal  process. 


42  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

But  to  what  do  these  two  processes  lead,  according  to 
Plato  ?  What  are  their  different  results  ? 

Those  who  use  the  dialectic  attain  to  some  perception  of 
being  and  of  the  intelligible  (VTTO  r%  TOV  SiaXeyeaOai,  eiri- 
arrj/jirjs  TOV  6Vro?  re  ical  VOTJTOV  Oeaipov^evov). 

Those  who  move  by  induction  from  their  starting-point 
(al?  at  inrodeaeis  dp%ai),  and  do  not  go  back  to  the  primary 
cause  (&ia  TO  f^rj  eV  ap-^v  dve\6ovTas),  never  really  attain 
to  an  intelligence  of  their  object,  which  is,  however,  intelli- 
gible if  they  know  how  to  refer  it  to  its  primary  cause  (vovv 

OVK,  1(T%€IV  7T€pl  aVTU,  KaiTOl  VQT]TtoV  OVTtoV  /Jb6Ta  a/ 


VII. 

"  But,"  says  Plato,  "  here  we  have  a  far  more  difficult 
point.  ...  I  will  deal  with  it  to  the  best  of  niy  ability  : 
God  alone  knows  if  it  be  so." 

This  point,  -in  our  opinion,  affords  Plato  opportunity  to 
settle,  in  an  admirable  manner,  perhaps  the  most  important 
of  all  philosophical  questions. 

The  point  is  to  distinguish  the  degrees  of  knowledge,  and 
particularly  of  the  knowledge  of  God. 

Plato  first  distinguishes  clearly  two  degrees  of  knowledge 
in  general,  —  knowledge  of  sensible  things  (opaTOv),  and 
knowledge  of  intelligible  things  (vorjTov).1 

We  shall  speak  of  the  intelligible  only. 

Within  this  degree  Plato  notes  two  others,  —  one  of  which 
corresponds  to  discursive  thought  (Sidvoia),  the  other  to  true 
intellect  (vorjcris). 

The  inferior  degree,  that  of  discursive  thought,  corre- 
sponds to  the  syllogistic  process  which,  by  means  of  identity, 
catches  glimpses  of  essential  and  immutable  truths,  but 
without  understanding  their  relation  to  the  principle  of  their 
unity  in  God. 

1  De  Rep.,  509. 


PLATO'S  THEODICY.  43 

The  superior  degree,  that  of  intellect,  corresponds  to  the 
dialectic  process  which  rises  to  the  principle  of  all  truths. 

In  the  superior  degree,  which  is  that  of  true  science  (eV*- 
cmjiJLr)'),1  superior  to  discursive  notions  (Sidvoia),  the  mind 
contemplates  that  which  Being  and  truth  illuminate? 

But  is  this  superior  degree  itself,  such  as  it  has  been 
described,  the  final  possibility  of  intellectual  vision  ?  Or  at 
least,  has  it  not  its  degrees  ?  Is  there  nothing  beyond  the 
science  that  contemplates  that  which  Being  and  truth  illumi- 
nate ?  "  We  have,"  says  Plato,  "  beyond  science,  Being 
itself  and  truth  itself  (avro  TO  dXrjOes),  which  give  to  things 
truth  (a\rjdeta),  and,  to  the  mind,  strength  to  know;  and 
there  must  be,  beyond  science,  the  very  remote  (reXeuraia), 
very  faint  vision  (/-toyt?  opaaOai)  8  of  that  selfsame  Being 
which  is  supreme  Goodness.  For  if  science  and  truth  are  so 
fair,  their  source  is  fairer  yet."  "  We  should  be  mistaken," 
he  says,  "  much  mistaken,  if  we  supposed  that  light  and  sight 
are  the  sun  ;  they  are  images  or  reflections  of  the  sun  (rJXto- 
ei&rj).  So,  too,  we  should  mistake  if  we  supposed  science  and 
truth  (a\rj0€t,a)  to  be  supreme  Goodness  itself ;  they  are  the 
images  or  reflections  of  supreme  Goodness  (ayadoe&rf)" 

So  that  science  (eVto-TiJ/^?;),  even  that  acquired  through 
the  dialectic,  is,  according  to  Plato,  the  vision  of  an  image 
(ayaOoeiSrj').  But  then  can  we  never  succeed  in  seeing,  not 
merely  the  image  (etV<5ya),  but  the  truth  itself  (avro  TO 
a\r)0es)  ? 4  Can  we  not,  when  we  have  acquired  through 
dialectic  a  perception  OF  DIVINE  PHANTOMS  AND  SHADOWS 
OF  THAT  WHICH  IS  (^>avTa(TfiaTa  Oela  KOI  ovaa?  TWV  OVTWV), 
judge  that  these  shadows  and  these  images  are  produced  by 
a  sun  which  corresponds  to  them  (ovaa?  Si  eTepov  TOLOVTOV 
<£&>TO<?,  &>?  7T/30?  ri\ioVj  Kplveiv  cnTocrKLa^ofJieva^)  1 5 

Yes,  we   can ;   we   may  attain  to  a  vision   even   of  the 

1  De  Rep.,  533.  3  Ibid.,  517.  6  Ibid.,  532. 

2  Ibid.,  508  D.  4  ibid.,  532. 


44  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

essence  of  things  (eV  CLVTO  o  eariv  e/cacrrov  oppav).1  We 
may  succeed  in  seeing  the  supreme  Being  of  beings  (TT/QO? 
rrjv  TOV  apiffTOV  ev  rot?  oven  Oeav) ;  we  may  reach  that  high- 
est intellectual  summit  (eV  avrw  T&>  TOV  vorjrov  reXet) ;  we 
may  grasp  the  supreme  essential  Being  himself,  through  the 
mind  itself  (avro  o  eanv  'Aya6bv  avrfj  vorjaet,  \dftrj) ;  we 
may  gain  sight  of  supreme  Goodness  (rrjv  TOV  'AyaQov  ISeav). 
We  see  it  dimly  (poyis  opdo-dai) ;  but  we  may,  we  should, 
see  it. 

We  may  do  all  this,  says  Plato,  and  we  should  do  it.  We 
should  persistently  pursue  this  inquiry,  and  never  pause 
until  we  succeed  in  grasping,  through  the  mind  itself,  the 
supreme  Goodness  itself  (ical  fj,rj  aTroa-rfj  irplv  av  CLVTO  o 
€(TTW  'Aya0bv  avrfj  vorjaei  Xa/rty) ; 2  this  is  the  final  end  of 
the  impulse  of  the  mind,  the  term  of  the  dialectic  (re\o? 
TT}?  Trope/a?). 

Thus,  according  to  Plato,  beyond  even  that  grand  knowledge 
which  the  dialectic  gives  us,  which  is  the  vision  of  things  illu- 
mined by  the  light  of  supreme  Goodness,  by  the  light  of  Being 
and  of  truth  itself,  beyond  this  knowledge  and  this  truth  re- 
flected in  things,  if  we  may  so  express  it,  we  have  Truth  it- 
self, Being  itself  ;  we  have  the  idea  and  the  sight  of  supreme 
Goodness ;  we  have  the  principle  of  all  things  ;  we  have  the 
most  perfect  of  beings  and  the  height  of  the  intelligible  ;  we 
have  the  final  end  and  aim  of  the  process,  which  is  the  at- 
tainment of  supreme  Goodness  itself  through  the  mind  itself, 
directly  and  immediately.  But  this  end,  he  says  elsewhere, 
is  not  attained  until  after  death. 

Plato  makes  these  degrees  of  knowledge  and  the  course 
of  the  process  clear  to  us,  by  his  famous  description  of  the 
cavern,  and  the  story  of  the  deliverance  of  the  captives. 

First  we  have  captivity  in  the  cave,  and  then  liberty 
in  the  sunshine:  which  corresponds  to  the  vision  of 

1  De  Kep.,  532.  2  ibid.,  532. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  45 

the  two  worlds,  —  the  world  of  sense,  and  the  world  of 
intellect. 

In  the  cave  there  are  shadows  (ovaa?)  and  echoes.  At  first 
they  can  only  see  by  reflected  rays,  whether  of  light  or  of 
voice.  Then  there  conies  a  change.  They  turn  away  from 
the  shadows  to  objects  and  to  the  light  (jMerao-rpo^rj  atrb 
rwv  atciwv  eVl  ra  ei$o\a  /cal  TO  c^ft)?).1 

Outside  the  cave,  in  the  real  world,  there  are,  Plato  always 
affirms,  many  degrees  of  vision.  At  first,  the  captives  see 
shadows  (aicids}  ;  then  (/iera  TOVTO)  we  have  another  degree, 
—  they  see  the  images  of  objects  in  the  water  (eV  rot? 
vSacnv  et'SwAa) ;  then  the  objects  themselves,  men,  and  ani- 
mals. Then  they  gaze  up  at  the  sky,  at  first  by  night,  to 
see  the  reflected  light  of  the  moon.  "  At  last,  after  all  this, 
they  look  upon  the  sun,  —  not  indirectly  now,  apart  from 
itself,  in  its  image  reflected  in  the  waters,  but  the  sun  itself, 
by  itself,  in  its  proper  place."  2 

This  admirable  distinction  between  seeing  shadows,  reflec- 
tions, phantoms,  images,  and  the  direct  sight  of  light  in  its 
course,  —  this  distinction,  the  vast  results  of  which  we  shall 
see  later  on,  was  afterwards  even  more  fully  established  by 
Saint  Augustine  when  he  speaks  of  reason  attaining  to  its 
final  end  (ratio  perveniens  ad  finem  suum) ;  and  by  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas,  when  he  describes  the  two  degrees  of 
the  divine  intelligible  (duplici  igitur  veritate  divinorum 
intelligibilium  existente).  We  beg  the  reader  to  keep  this 
point  well  fixed  in  his  memory.  He  will  understand  the 
bearing  of  it  later.  It  is  the  most  important  point  in  all 
philosophy. 

For  the  rest,  Plato  seems  to  us  to  havo  seen,  or  rather 
expressed,  this  fundamental  distinction  in  a  slightly  confused 
way.  This  has  given  rise  to  discussions  of  his  Theory  of 
Ideas,  and  of  the  question  whether  to  him  the  Word  is  God 

i  De  Rep.,  532.  2  Ibid.,  516  B. 


46  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

or   is   not   God.     But  is  it  surprising   that  a  truth  which 
escaped  Malebranche,  —  this  is  the  omission  in  his  system, 

—  and  over  which  Bossuet  hesitates,  should  be  expressed  by 
Plato  with  some  ambiguity  ?     Moreover,  to  all  who  can  see 
clearly  the  great  intellectual  fact  in  dispute,  it  is  evident 
that  Plato  saw  the  truth,  although   he  may  waver   in  his 
description. 

What  Plato  saw  is,  that  truth  as  man  possesses  it,  or  finds 
it  naturally,  is  only  an  image  of  God,  but  not  the  direct 
sight  of  God.  Pascal  says,  "The  truth  —  taken  in  this  sense 

—  is  not  God,  but  it  is  his  image,  and  an  idol  which  we 
should  not  adore."     The  essential,  eternal,  immutable  truths 
of  which  reason  gives  us  the  certainty  and  the  clear  sight 
are,  as  Plato  expresses  it,  but  divine  phantoms  or  shadows 
of  what  is, — a  magnificent  expression,  of  the  most  fruitful 
depth,  which  we  cannot  sufficiently  admire.     Even  geome- 
try, according   to  Plato,  sees   only  shadows,  the   dream   of 
Being,  not  waking  vision  of  Being  }  —  another  statement  of 
deep  meaning.     But  what  man  desires,  and  should  desire, 
according   to   Plato,   is  to   pass   from   shadows,   reflections, 
echoes,  and  images.     He  desires  to  hurry  on ;  and  he  should 
do    so,   never   pausing   until   he    has   grasped   very   Being, 
supreme  Goodness   itself,  through  his  intelligence  itself,  — 
that  is  to  say,  until  he  has  acquired  direct  and  immediate 
sight  of  God. 

Plato,  therefore,  sees  here  what  Saint  Augustine  expresses 
so  perfectly  when  he  says,  "  God  is  intelligible ;  these  spec- 
tacles of  scientific  truths  are  so  likewise.  But  what  a  differ- 
ence ! 2  The  earth  is  visible,  the  light  of  the  sun  is  visible ; 
but  the  earth  is  visible  only  by  the  light  of  the  sun.  There 
is  all  the  difference  of  earth  and  sky  between  these  phan- 
toms of  assured  truths  and  the  intelligible  majesty  of  God/' 3 

1  De  Rep.,  533  C.  8  Ibid.,  p.  686,  §  11  (v.). 

2  Soliloq.,  lib.  i.  p.  608,  §  14  (vii.). 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  47 

;8ft% 
VIII.        U>  !TY 


t 
Thus,  we  see,  Plato  through  his  dialectic  was  able  to  rise 

to  the  true  God,  —  to  very  Being,  to  the  most  perfect  of 
beings,  to  the  beginnings  of  all  things,  to  truth  itself,  to 
supreme  Goodness  which  is.  But  did  he  ever  really  attain 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God,  to  the  genuine  idea  of 
God  and  his  attributes'?  We  unhesitatingly  answer,  Yes. 

This  is  the  opinion  of  Saint  Augustine,  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas,  Bossuet,  and  also  of  Fe*nelon  and  Thomassin.  We 
shall  quote  these  decisive  authorities  later.  Let  us  first 
show  the  fact. 

In  the  tenth  book  of  his  Laws,  Plato,  striving  to  establish 
that  there  is  a  Providence,  rises  through  his  dialectic  to  the 
idea  of  God,  as  follows :  "  There  are  in  us  certain  virtues : 
therefore  God  possesses  fully  all  virtue.1  We  can  do  some 
things :  God  can  at  least  do  all  that  we  can  do.2  In  us 
there  may  be  both  good  and  evil :  in  God,  not." 3 

Thus  the  resemblance  and  contrast  between  ourselves  and 
God  lift  Plato,  according  to  his  theory,  to  the  reminiscence 
of  God. 

These  assertions,  we  see,  are  nothing  but  that  common 
and  natural  dialectic  which,  in  the  spectacle  of  visible  things 
and  the  sight  of  the  human  soul,  effaces  limits,  omissions,  and 
evil,  thus  elevating  goodness  to  the  infinite  and  affirming  it 
to  be  of  God.  But  Plato  did  this  scientifically. 

However  this  may  be,  we  have  already  seen  that  Plato's 
God  is  not  an  abstract  God.  Plato's  God  is  the  absolute  Be- 
ing, without  faults ;  supreme  Goodness  ;  the  Being  possessed 
of  all  virtue,  wisdom,  and  providence;  the  sun  of  the  intelligi- 
ble world,  of  which  the  essential  and  universal  truths  which 
we  see  are  the  shadow.  This  God,  the  author  and  Father  of 

i  Leg.,  900  D.  2  Ibid.,  901  D.  8  Ibid.,  900  D. 


48  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

intelligible  light,  is  also  the  author  and  parent  of  the  sun 
and  the  visible  world.  He  made  the  sun  in  his  own  image 
to  enlighten  the  world,  as  he  himself  enlightens  the  world  of 
intelligence.1  He  is  that  Goodness  which  we  scarcely  per- 
ceive, in  the  centre  of  the  world  of  intelligence,  but  which, 
once  seen,  appears  as  the  cause  of  all  that  is  good  and  beau- 
tiful.2 It  is  towards  him  that  the  soul  of  the  true  philo- 
sopher, which  alone  lias  wings,  strives  to  soar. 

He  who  is  absolutely  (rw  Traz^reXw?  OVTI),  who  is  a  living 
absolute  (rw  iravT^\el  £wo>),  a  perfect  and  living  intelligible 
(TO>  reXewraTft)  fcal  VOTJTO)  foow),  the  living  one  who  is,  in 
whom  the  ideas  are  (evovaas  tSea?  TW  o  ecrn  faW),  the  eter- 
nal essence  (diSios  ovo-ia),  of  whom,  properly  speaking,  we 
cannot  say  that  it  has  been,  or  will  be,  but  only  that  it  is 
(TO  eo-ri  povov) :  it  is  the  God  who  is  forever  (6Wo?  ael  Qeov).3 
It  is  he  who  possesses  motion  in  repose,  who  possesses  au- 
gust and  sacred  intelligence  ;  which  the  sophist  denies.  "  In 
God's  name,"  exclaims  Plato,  "  shall  we  be  readily  persuaded 
that  he  who  is  absolutely,  has  neither  motion,  nor  life,  nor  soul, 
nor  thought,  that  he  is  inert,  that  he  is  without  august  and 
sacred  intelligence  1  Shall  we  let  men  tell  us  that  he  has 
intelligence,  but  has  no  life  ?  Shall  we  let  them  tell  us  that 
he  has  both,  but  not  personality  ? 4  Shall  we  let  them  tell 
us  that  he  is  personal,  intelligent,  living,  but  inert?  All 
this  would  be  absurd."5 

Moreover,  according  to  Plato,  it  is  this  God  who  made  the 
world.  Everything  was  made  by  God  (Kara  ye  Bebv  avra 
jijveo-Oat).  The  world  does  not  proceed  from  a  blind  and 
spontaneous  cause  producing  without  consciousness  (a?r6 
TWOS  atr/a?  avTOfjidrr)?  real  avev  Siavoias  (frvova-rjs),  but  it 
proceeds  from  a  God  who  creates  with  knowledge  and  with 

*  De  Rep.,  508  C.  2  Ibid.,  517  C.  8  Tim.,  30  et  seq. 

4  We  cannot  here  translate  otherwise  the  word  ^i/x7?-     This  is  plainly 
what  Plato  means. 
6  Sophist..  265  C. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  49 

divine  reason  (/jLera  \6yov  re  /cal  eTricmjfjLTjs  #e/a?,  OLTTO  Oeov). 
The  beings,  which  were  not  at  first,  afterwards  became 
through  the  God  who  made  them  (Oeov  SrjpiovpyovvTos 
vo-repov  ytyveaOat,  TTporepov  ov/c  ovra).1 

Such  is  the  God  given  by  the  dialectic  of  Plato.  This 
God  is;  he  is  good;  he  is  the  absolute  Being,  Goodness 
itself,  intelligence  and  providence,  author  and  Father  of  the 
world.  He  is  the  true  God. 

But  another  decisive  proof  that  Plato  really  knew  the  true 
God  and  his  attributes,  and  that  he  constantly  alludes  to 
them,  is  that  his  entire  doctrine  may  be  called  the  doctrine 
of  ideas,  and  that,  according  to  Plato,  ideas  exist  in  God,  and 
are  God. 

That  such  is  the  thought  of  Plato,  seems  to  us  well  estab- 
lished, in  spite  of  all  contradictions.  Thomassin  does  not 
hesitate  to  maintain  this  thesis  ex  professo :  "  Ideas  were 
placed  in  God  by  Plato ;  that  is  the  unanimous  opinion  of 
the  Fathers."2 

When  Plato  says,  "  Ideas  are  in  the  living  one  who  is,"  it 
seems  to  me  that  this  sentence  alone  should  suffice  to  settle 
the  question. 

Plato  everywhere  affirms  that  the  world  and  all  that 
therein  is  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  ideas.  Now,  in  the 
Timseus,  he  asserts  that  things  were  made  as  they  are,  "to 
the  end  that  the  world  might  be  as  similar  as  possible  to  the 
intelligible  and  perfect  living  one  (iva  roS'  o>?  o/jboiorarov  y 
Tc5  reXewrarw  teal  vorjTw  fww)."  3 

Thus,  according  to  Plato,  ideas  are  actually  that  intelli- 
gible and  perfect  living  one,  i.  e.  God.  He  repeats  the  same 
thing  elsewhere.  "To  the  end,"  he  says,  "that  the  world 
may  be  like  unto  the  living  absolute  (iva  roBe  .  .  .  opoiov 

1  Sophist.,  265  C. 

2  Thorn.,  Dog.  Theol.     This  is  the  heading  to  chap.  xii.  lib.  iii. 
*  Tim.,  39. 

4 


50  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

r)  TO)  7ravTe\€i  £&>&>)." l  In  the  Timseus,  Plato  never  ceases 
to  consider  the  eternal  exemplar  of  ideas  (d'&Lov  TrapdSeiypa) 
as  being  the  living  absolute,  which  includes  all  living  intelli- 
gibles,  and  which  is  the  intelligible,  supreme,  and  perfect 
beauty  of  all  points  (ra  yap  Be  vorjrd  £000,  Trdvra  etcelvo  Iv 
eavTM  7r€pi\a/3bv  e^et  .  .  .  TO>  TWV  voovfjbevwv  Ka\\icrrw  KOI 
Kara  irdvra  TeXea>)."  2  This  is  the  assertion  in  exact  words 
that  ideas,  the  eternal  example  for  the  world,  are  precisely 
God. 

When  Plato  speaks  of  God,  who  is  always  (6Wo9  del  Oeov),3 
who  created  the  world  by  gazing  at  that  which  is  always  (TO 
bv  del),  that  is  to  say,  the  eternal  exemplar,  ideas,  does  not 
Plato  clearly  state  that  in  gazing  at  that  which  is  always, 
ideas,  he  regards  only  himself,  who  always  is  ? 

The  texts  in  Plato  which  prove  our  thesis  are  superabun- 
dant. It  only  remains  for  us  to  show  the  precise  cause  of 
the  misapprehension.  If  there  be  quotations  which  seem  to 
contradict  each  other  upon  this  point,  it  is  because  Plato, 
like  ourselves,  necessarily  uses  the  word  idea  in  two  different 
senses,  sometimes  to  signify  the  truth  as  it  is  in  itself  (avro 
TO  dXrjOes),  sometimes  the  truth  as  we  see  it  in  ourselves 
(eTTio-TijfjLrj  Kal  d\ijOeia).  In  the  first  case,  according  to 
Plato,  ideas  are  in  God  and  are  God ;  in  the  second,  Being 
itself,  supreme  Goodness,  is  as  superior  to  them  as  the  sun  is 
superior  to  the  light  reflected  by  the  world,  and  to  the  vision 
which  we  have  of  that  light.4  £here  are  ideas  in  God  and 
ideas  in  us ;  and  between  these  two  meanings  of  the  word, 
there  is  all  the  difference  that  Saint  Augustine  finds  between 
those  two  lights,  of  which  one  is  the  light  that  illumines  (lu- 
men illuminans) :  this  is  God,  the  idea  of  God ;  and  of  which 
the  other  is  only  the  light  that  is  illuminated  (lumen  illu- 
minatum) ;  that  is,  we  ourselves,  the  idea  in  us,  created 
intelligence. 

1  Tim.,  31.  2  Ibid.,  3t).  8  Ibid.,  34.  4  De  Rep.,  508. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  51 

All  the  difficulties  come  from  this.  With  this  key  we 
can,  I  think,  settle  them.1  Moreover,  we  should  be  well 
aware  that,  for  some  time  back,  Plato,  as  well  as  Aristotle, 
has  been  turned  to  account  by  Hegelian  sophists,  who  strive 
to  take  refuge  beneath  his  wings,  and  shed  their  darkness 
over  his  light.  We  will  amply  prove  this  in  the  proper 
place. 

IX. 

Let  us  now  turn  from  the  result  to  the  process. 

We  see,  by  the  fact,  that  Plato  was  familiar  with  the 
great  and  chief  process  of  the  reason,  the  only  one  which 
rises  to  God. 

But  what  is  very  remarkable,  is  that  he  also  knew,  de- 
scribed, and  combated  its  abuse.  It  seems  as  if  he  foresaw 
the  use  which  the  Alexandrians  would  make  of  it,  and 
the  still  more  absurd  use  which  German  sophists  would 
make  of  it  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

Plato  puts  the  question  and  settles  it  with  the  utmost 
precision.  It  is  strange  that  the  importance  of  his  solution 
of  the  point  is  not  appreciated !  Leibnitz  was  struck  by  it, 
and  quotes  it  as  something  of  great  value.  We  have,  says 
Plato,  the  philosopher  and  the  sophist.  The  philosopher 
and  the  sophist  are  exactly  opposite  in  mind.  The  first 
alone  deals  with  the  true  dialectic,  which  rises  to  the  splen- 
dors of  the  one  Being,  the  object  of  his  inquiry  and  his  con- 
templation. But  what  is  the  sophist's  course  ?  What  does 
he  seek,  and  what  does  he  see  ?  Hear  Plato's  answer :  The 
sophist  moves  towards  mere  nothingness.  He  seeks  and 
pursues  non-being,  and  takes  refuge  in  its  shadows.2  That 
is  his  dwelling  and  the  habit  of  his  mind.  Aristotle  notes 

1  See,  on  this  point,  book  iii.  de  Deo,  by  Thomassin,  and  Nourisson's  the- 
sis, "  Quid  Plato  senserit  de  Idceis,"  —  a  substantial  summary  of  a  great  work. 

2  Sophist.,  254. 


52  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

this  opinion  of  Plato.  "  Plato,"  he  says,  "  very  fitly  remarks 
'  that  sophism  rests  entirely  upon  non-being.' " 

The  reader  will  understand  later,  if  he  does  not  already 
see,  the  depth  of  this  observation.  But  this  is  not  the  place 
to  develop  it. 

We  merely  wish  to  show  that  Plato  by  his  process,  which 
is  the  true  one,  could  not  obtain  an  idol,  a  false  god,  or 
the  empty  and  abstract  unity  of  the  Alexandrines,  —  a 
unity  without  being,  goodness,  or  intelligence,  —  and  still 
less  that  monster  of  contemporary  pantheism,  ontological 
nonentity.  Far  from  this,  Plato  declares  this  tendency  to 
be  utterly  contrary  to  philosophy,  and  uses  the  right  phrase 
in  regard  to  those  who  meditate  upon  non-existence,  or, 
what  is  the  same  thing,  the  teachers  of  absolute  identity. 
He  calls  their  doctrine  monstrous.  "  If  any  one  call  like- 
ness un likeness,  and  unlikeness  likeness,  it  seems  to  me  that 
it  would  be  monstrous"  *  And  he  adds  an  expression 
which  Malebranche  seems  to  have  translated  when  he  lays 
stress  upon  that  kind  of  identical  proposition  which  strikes 
him  as  being  fundamental :  To  perceive  nothing,  or  not  to 
perceive  anything,  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  "  He  who 
says  nothing,  necessarily,  it  seems,  says  nothing."  We  need 
not  even  admit  that  he  says  anything ;  he  says  nothing, 
or  rather,  he  does  not  speak,  who  undertakes  to  put  into 
articulate  utterance  that  which  has  no  existence.2 

In  the  face  of  so  plain  a  statement,  it  is  not  admissible  to 
take  an  unfair  advantage  of  certain  passages  in  the  Par- 
menides  or  any  other  dialogue,  to  confound  Plato  with  the 
sophists,  who  do  not  even  distinguish  nothingness  from 
Being,  and  whose  wholly  perverted  mind  works  the  void  and 
produces  the  absurd.  If  obscure,  vague,  or  even  inexact 
statements  occasionally  escape  him  in  describing  the  process 
which  leads  to  the  light  of  supreme  Being  and  supreme 

1  Parmetiid.,  129.  2  Sophist.,  237  E. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  53 

Goodness ;  if,  especially  in  translations,  Plato  seems  to 
give  a  very  strange  idea  of  the  infinite,  —  we  must  first  care- 
fully consider  all  the  texts,  and  see  whether  sometimes, 
as  certainly  there  are  examples,  we  have  not  translated 
the  word  which  should  mean  undetermined,  or  at  most 
indefinite,  as  infinite,  —  which  would  be  the  exact  opposite 
of  the  true  meaning.  Then,  if  we  still  find  errors  in  Plato's 
text  itself,  we  should  not  be  surprised.  In  regard  to  this 
difficult  and  even  yet  most  obscure  point,  no  exact  solution 
was  reached  until  since  the  seventeenth  century,  and  that 
solution  itself  is  still  but  little  known.  The  precise  theory 
of  the  infinite,  before  the  new  era,  was  scarcely  possible;  and 
many  Christian  sages  have  themselves  used  expressions  con- 
cerning this  subject  which  have  only  been  noted  and  cor- 
rected by  the  Catholic  Church  within  the  last  two  hundred 
years. 

X. 

Let  us  sum  up  all  that  we  have  said. 

Plato  employs  the  true  process  of  reasoning  which  leads 
up  to  God,  and  he  does  indeed  attain  to  the  true  God.  He 
takes  created  things  as  his  starting-point,  not  as  the  prin- 
ciple of  deduction.  He  asserts  that  we  should  advance 
from  this  starting-point,  taken  merely  as  a  fulcrum  for 
our  fliyht,  to  the  universal  primary  cause  which  is  outside 
the  starting-point ;  that  reason,  by  the  true  dialectic  process, 
rises  to  absolute  Being,  which  is  living,  intelligent,  personal, 
and  active,  which  is  the  cause  of  all  beauty,  all  goodness, 
which  includes  all  perfection,  with  no  trace  of  imperfection, 
which  is  supreme  Goodness  itself,  the  Father  of  the  world, 
the  creator  of  all  things,  who  does  not  produce  his  work 
spontaneously  and  blindly,  but  with  knowledge  and  divine 
reason,  and  creates  the  beings  which  are  not  at  first,  but 
which  become  through  him. 


54  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

Plato  shows  that  reason,  by  the  other  process,  which  is 
syllogistic,  does  not  reach  this  end,  and  can  never  rise  above 
its  starting-point  or  depart  from  it,  since  it  takes  it  as  the 
principle  of  deduction  by  means  of  identity.  And,  in  fact,  it 
is  used  by  the  purified  soul  only  to  return  to  the  first  pro- 
cess, wliich  alone  lias  wings  and  is  pre-eminently  the  philo- 
sophical process  ;  intelligence  does  not  spread  its  wings  and 
turn  away  from  darkness  to  the  light,  except  with  the  whole 
soul ;  we  must  cut  and  prune  within  the  soul,  and,  as  it 
were,  circumcise  it;  we  must  prune  the  natural  instincts 
of  the  animal  part,  which  turn  the  gaze  of  the  soul  down- 
ward ;  then  only  can  it  change  its  direction  and  turn  to  the 
truth.  Then  its  gaze  is  bent  upon  that  which  is  divine  and 
luminous,  while  the  wicked  and  the  impure  have  nought  for 
their  eye  to  rest  upon  but  the  empty  shadows  of  God. 

This  is  precisely  why  the  sophist,  moving  in  the  opposite 
direction  from  the  philosopher,  takes  not-being  as  the  end 
and  object  of  his  contemplation,  and  hides  himself  in  the 
gloom  of  nothingness. 

And  these  two  contrary  directions  of  thought  depend  upon 
the  free  use  which  every  man  makes  of  the  gift  of  God ;  that 
is,  of  the  contact  of  God  with  the  root  of  the  soul,  —  at 
that  point  where  every  soul  is  joined  to  God. 

So  Plato  says. 

It  is  certain  that  man's  reason  moves  in  this  way,  alike 
in  the  humblest  minds  and  in  the  profoundest  philosophers. 

Reason,  moving  according  to  its  fundamental  law,  should 
find  the  eternal,  perfect,  and  infinite  God,  Father  of  men, 
Creator  of  the  world.  God,  as  Saint  Paul  teaches,  shows 
himself  sufficiently ;  he  is  known  through  visible  things,  and 
man  is  inexcusable  if  he  does  not  recognize  and  glorify  him  : 
this  is  the  duty  of  reason.  But  there  is  a  healthy  reason 
and  a  perverted  reason.  Healthy  reason  rules  in  the  soul 
which  enjoys  moral  freedom,  and  perverted  reason  in  the 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  55 

soul  which  is  enslaved.     The  one  looks  higher  than  man, 
the  other  lower. 

XL 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  show  that  in  our  so  favorable 
opinion  of  the  Platonic  doctrine  we  have  gone  no  farther 
than  Saint  Augustine,  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  Bossuet,  nor 
perhaps  so  far  as  Thomassin.  We  say  what  they  say,  and 
that  is  enough. 

Saint  Augustine  sees  in  antiquity  one  true  doctrine  and 
two  sects.  The  two  sects  are  those  of  Epicurus  and  Zeno ; 
the  true  doctrine  is  that  of  Plato. 

We  judge  doctrine,  according  to  Saint  Augustine,  by  the 
point  where  it  places  these  three  things :  supreme  Goodness 
(faiem  boni),  the  world-cause  (causas  rerum),  the  fulcrum 
of  reason  (ratiocinandi  fiduciam). 

Now,  Epicurus  places  these  three  things  in  the  body  and 
the  senses :  his  sect  is  impure.  Zeno  places  them  in  man 
himself :  his  sect  is  arrogant.  Plato  places  them  in  the 
true  God;  his  philosophy  is  the  true  one.  So  says  Saint 
Augustine. 

He  asserts  that  the  Platonists  "  place  in  the  true  God 
the  creative  force  of  all  things,  the  light  of  ideas,  and  the 
good  of  practical  life."  1  He  asserts  that,  as  Cicero  abun- 
dantly proves,  "  they  place  in  an  immutable,  eternal,  in  no 
way  human,  but  properly  divine  wisdom,  —  the  original  wis- 
dom, stimulator  of  the  other,  —  these  three  things  :  supreme 
Goodness,  the  world-cause,  and  the  fulcrum  of  reason."  2 
Saint  Paul  himself,  he  says  elsewhere,  does  not  accuse  them 
of  ignorance  of  the  true  God.  Elsewhere,  again,  he  declares 
"  that  Platonists  place  God  far  above  the  nature  of  every 
created  spirit.  He  having  created  not  only  visible  nature 

1  De  Civit.  Dei,  lib.  viii.  cap.  ix.  t.  vii.  p.  320. 

2  St.  Aug.,  Epist.,  c.  xviii.  t.  ii.  p.  502. 


56  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

but  the  soul  itself,  he  enlightens  every  rational  nature,  such 
as  the  human  soul  is,  and  blesses  it  by  admitting  it  to  a 
share  in  his  immaterial  and  immutable  light."  1 

"  Let  all  sects,"  he  again  says,  "  yield  to  the  philosophers, 
who  say  not  that  man's  blessedness  is  in  his  body,  or  in 
his  soul,  but  in  God  alone :  not  as  the  mind  enjoys  the  body 
or  itself,  or  as  men  find  their  happiness  one  in  the  other,  but 
indeed  as  the  eye  enjoys  the  light.  .  .  .  Plato  places  blessed- 
ness in  virtue,  virtue  in  knowledge  and  imitation  of  God ;  and 
this  itself  is  blessedness.  He  does  not  hesitate,  he  asserts 
that  to  philosophize  is  to  love  God.-"2 

Such  is  Saint  Augustine's  opinion  of  Plato. 

As  for  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  he 3  defends  Plato  against 
Aristotle  in  regard  to  a  charge  which  strikes  him  as  odious. 
He  says  that  it  is  absurd  (videtur  absurdum)  to  impute  fol- 
lies to  such  men  as  Socrates  and  Plato  (talibus  et  tantis  viris), 
—  to  men  who  were  the  most  virtuous  of  philosophers  (qui 
fuerunt  homines  virtutibus  dediti  super  omnes  philosopher) ; 
who  established  virtue  as  the  chief  good  of  humanity  (solas 
mrtutes  bonum  hominis  ponebant),  and  all  whose  philosophy 
tended  to  virtue  (qui  ad  componendos  mores  corrigendosque 
totam  suam  philosophiam  effluerunt). 

Thus,  according  to  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  Plato  is  not 
one  of  those  philosophers  whom  Saint  Paul  stigmatizes,  when 
he  says  that  having  known  God,  they  have  glorified  him  not, 
and  on  account  of  this  have  become  vain  in  their  imaginations 
and  given  themselves  up  to  uncleanness. 

If  the  authenticity  of  the  book  De  Regimine  principum  be 
contested,  here  is  another  testimony,  taken  from  the  Summa, 
the  last  work  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  summary  of  all 
his  teaching.  He  asserts  that  Plato  established  the  idea  of 

1  St.  Aug.,  De  Cirit.  Dei,  lib.  viii.  cap.  i. 

2  Ibid.,  cap.  viii.  t.  vii.  p.  320. 

3  De  regimine  principum,  cap.  iv.  t.  iv.  p.  822.     Paris  edition. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  57 

the  true  God.  "  He  established,"  he  says,  "  as  a  being  apart, 
the  idea  of  Being,  the  idea  of  the  One,  which  he  calls  Being 
by  itself,  and  Unity  in  itself ;  being,  unity,  whence  proceeds 
by  participation  all  that  can  be  called  being  or  unity.  .  .  . 
He  also  established  that  Being  by  itself,  the  One  in  itself,  is 
supreme  Goodness;  and  as»  Goodness,  Being,  and  Unity  are 
identical,  he  said  that  Goodness  was  God,  in  which  all  that 
may  be  called  good  must  share.  And  all  this  is  true,"  says 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas ;  "  it  is  true  that  there  is  a  first  Being, 
which  is  by  its  very  essence,  which  is  Goodness,  which  is  he 
whom  we  call  God.  Aristotle  agrees  on  this  point  with 
Plato."1 

Moreover,  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  asserts,  with  Saint  Justin, 
that  Plato  knew  the  book  of  Genesis  and  followed  it  in  cer- 
tain points.  We  scarcely  understand  why  this  should  be  dis- 
puted. Is  it  possible  that  Plato  could  be  wholly  ignorant  of 
Oriental  traditions  ?  Could  it  be  that  among  these  traditions 
he  knew  nothing  of  the  Jews,  whose  zeal  and  activity  bring 
them  to  the  front  everywhere  ?  His  utter  ignorance  on  this 
point  would  be  very  hard  to  explain.  Plato  elsewhere,  like 
Socrates,  —  and  this  is  to  be  carefully  noted,  —  everywhere 
enters  into  tradition  so  far  as  he  can.  He  uses  with  the 
deepest  respect,  and  accepts  in  his  philosophy,  all  the  sound 
doctrines  which  he  encounters,  Plato,  like  every  genuine 
philosopher,  sought  after  truth  rather  than  after  the  mode  of 
finding  it.  He  had  no  trace  of  that  strange  pedantry,  that 
barren  mania  known  as  rationalism,  which  consists  in  a  de- 
sire to  find  the  truth  in  a  certain  manner  and  in  no  other, 
and  of  one's  self  alone,  through  unaided  human  reason,  without 
any  mixture  of  tradition,  authority,  or  feeling,  or  any  especial 
help  from  God;  like  a  man  who  plays  at  showing  his  strength, 
and  announces  that  he  will  lift  an  enormous  weight  without 
a  crowbar,  with  a  single  hand,  and  that  the  left.  Does  not  a 

1  Summte,  Ia,  q.  iv.  a.  4. 


58  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

true  workman  use  both  hands,  and  all  the  crowbars  that  he 
can  find  ?  So,  too,  did  Plato,  who  sought  the  truth  with  all 
his  mind  and  with  all  his  heart  and  with  his  whole  soul,  as 
he  says  we  should  do ;  who  studied  all  traditions,  and  trav- 
elled far  and  wide  to  find  every  trace  of  such ;  who  con- 
stantly invokes,  as  we  see  in  his  writings,  the  special  and 
present  help  of  God  to  know  the  truth,  —  help  which,  accord- 
ing to  Thomassin,  was  not  refused  him,  and  through  which  it 
was  given  him  to  know  the  true  philosophy,  that  of  which  a 
Father  of  the  Church  said :  "  The  Greeks  found  a  law  of  right- 
eousness in  philosophy,"1  —  a  statement  which  Saint  Thomas- 
quotes  and  confirms. 

To  know  Bocsuet's  opinion  of  Plato,  we  have  only  to  quote 
from  that  chapter  of  his  "  Logic  "  where  he  treats  of  eternal 
essences,2  and  thus  expresses  himself:  — 

"These  eternal  truths  which  our  ideas  present  are  the  true  ob- 
ject of  science,  and  therefore  that  we  may  become  truly  wise,  Plato 
incessantly  reminds  us  of  those  ideas  which  present  not  that  which 
shapes  itself,  but  that  which  is ;  not  that  which  engenders  and  suf- 
fers corruption,  which  is  seen  and  then  passes  away,  which  is  made 
and  destroyed,  but  that  which  eternally  subsists." 

"This  is  that  intellectual  world  which  this  divine  philosopher 
has  put  into  the  mind  of  God  before  the  world  was  formed,  and 
which  is  the  model  for  that  sublime  work." 

"These  are  the  simple,  eternal,  immutable,  imperishable,  and  in- 
corruptible ideas  to  which  he  refers  us  if  we  would  comprehend  the 
truth." 

"This  is  why  he  said  that  our  ideas,  the  images  of  divine  ideas, 
were  also  directly  derived  from  them,  and  did  not  come  through 
the  senses,  which  do  indeed  serve,  he  said,  to  awaken  them,  but 
not  to  form  them  in  our  mind." 

Let  us  now  come  to  the  testimony  of  Thomassin,  who  goes 
very  far  in  regard  to  Plato,  sometimes  perhaps  too  far  in 

1  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Strom.,  lib.  i.  no.  20. 

2  Logic,  liv.  i.  ch.  xxxvii. 


PLATO'S  THEODICY.  59 

regard  to  the  Platonists.  Thomassin  sees  in  the  philosophy 
of  Plato  what  it  itself  asserts,  a  doctrine  which  is  both 
speculative  arid  moral,  a  struggle  against  the  flesh  and  a 
constant  contemplation  of  death  (perpetua  mortis  meditatio 
et  conflictatio  cum  corpore)  ; l  a  doctrine  which  unfolds,  by 
means  of  reminiscence,  the  eternal  reasons  hidden  in  the  soul 
(latitantes  in  anima  rationes  per  reminiscentiam  exeitarej :  a 
doctrine  which  does  not  cast  man  upon  externals,  but  leads 
him  back  from  external  things  to  himself,  and  from  himself 
to  that  which  is  higher  (nee  in  externa  hominem  refundere, 
sed  ab  Us  ad  ipsum,  ut  ipsum  summum  contempletur)  ; 2  a 
doctrine  which  thus  found  truth,  not  by  chance,  but  by  its 
very  method,  as  Tertullian  says  (non  tantum  casu  in  verum 
quandoque  incurrisse)"  3 

This  doctrine,  adds  Thomassin,  strives  to  purify  the  affec- 
tions, to  lift  our  mind  to  God ;  and  the  very  basis  of  Platon- 
isrn,  according  to  Saint  Augustine,  is  the  placing  of  ideas  in 
God :  the  Fathers  agree  on  this  point.  The  contrary  error 
comes  from  Aristotle  tirst,  then  from  the  Gnostics  and  Arians. 
Plato  is  the  father  of  philosophy ;  and  he  went  to  the  verge 
of  philosophy,  having  more  than  any  other  philosopher 
recognized  and  asserted  the  fact  of  the  actual  intervention 
of  God,  by  his  help  and  his  grace,  in  the  contemplation  of 
immutable  truths.4  And  this  help  was  not  denied  him. 
The  Platonists,  again  says  Thomassin,  are  praised  by  Saint 
Augustine  for  attributing  to  divine  light  whatever  was  given 
them  in  the  order  of  that  contemplation.5  God,  in  fac^ 
aided  them ;  and,  moreover,  they  found  help  from  the 
Hebrews  (Dei  auxilio  adjuti  ;  deinde  Hebrceorum  quandoque 
contubernio).  Thus  we  praise,  we  quote,  this  patrician  race 

1  Logic,  lib.  vi.  cap.  iii.  n.  i.,  2.  2  Ibid.,  lib.  i.  cap.  ii.  n.  2. 

3  Ibid.,  cap.  xxiv.  n.  1. 

4  Dog.  Theol.,  t.  iii.  lib.  iv.  cap.  ii.  n.  10. 

5  Ibid.,  t.  ii.  lib.  iii.  cap.  v.  n.  15. 


60  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

of  philosophers  ;  and  to  make  their  doctrine  harmonize  with 
our  dogmas  is  not  a  difficult  work,  still  less  is  it  a  sterile 
task,  as  Saint  Bernard  himself  proved.1 

Finally,  in  the  preface  to  his  Theodicy,  Thomassin  thus 
sums  up  his  opinion  of  Plato:  "That  which  precedes  will 
readily  explain  to  you  why,  in  the  first  part  of  this  treatise, 
I  have  mingled  in  proof  Plato  and  his  disciples  with  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  Greek  and  Latin.  For  although  for 
the  last  five  hundred  years  our  most  famous  teachers  have 
gained  their  philosophic  education  in  the  school  of  Aristotle, 
we  must  remember  that  all  the  Fathers  acquired  theirs  in  the 
school  of  Plato.  Baronius  might  truly  say,  '  The  Academy 
is  the  antechamber  to  the  Church ; '  and  the  admirable  Saint 
Augustine,  himself  imbued  with  that  patrician  philosophy, 
as  Cicero  calls  it,  declares  that  by  changing  a  very  few 
words  and  thoughts,  a  Platonist  becomes  a  Christian.  To 
this  I  have  clung  tenaciously  (mordicus),  showing  in  every- 
thing the  harmony  of  their  thoughts  and  expressions  with 
our  Scriptures  and  our  holy  Fathers,  and  pointing  out  the 
differences  where  they  exist."2 

In  the  face  of  these  amazing  testimonials  from  the  Fathers 
and  from  Catholic  scholars,  —  testimonials  paid  to  the  Pla- 
tonic philosophy,  —  and  of  this  wonderful  agreement  between 
philosophy  and  theology,  this  perfect  union  of  philosophers 
and  theologians  of  the  first  order,  we  ask  the  meaning  of 
that  war  between  religion  and  philosophy,  reason  and  faith, 
of  which  we  have  heard  so  much  for  a  century  past.  For 
myself,  I  see  but  one  cause  for  this  unhealthy  division  of  the 
universal  light  of  the  Word  in  human  minds.  That  cause  is 
a  decay  of  the  human  mind,  and  a  simultaneous  degeneration 
of  reason  and  faith.  The  light  has  grown  dim  in  men's  souls, 
because  they  are  less  turned  towards  God.  Winter  reigns. 
Faith,  in  those  who  still  have  it,  has  a  lesser  radiance ; 

1  Dog.  Theol.,  t.  ii.  lib.  iii.  cap.  xxiii.  n.  9.  2  Prsef.,  t.  iii.  n.  10. 


PLATO'S   THEODICY.  Cl 

shrinking  and  repressed  in  the  innermost  heart,  it  no  longer 
sheds  its  divine  dew  upon  the  mind.  Faith  does  not  suffi- 
ciently seek  intelligence,  as  Saint  Augustine  urges  it  to  do. 
On  the  other  hand,  reason,  in  those  who  cultivate  it,  no  longer 
leads  to  any  result,  and  misses  the  object  of  its  career,  as  Plato 
expresses  it ;  it  does  not  search  enough  to  find.  Those  who 
rise  highest,  pause  "  at  divine  phantoms  and  the  shadows  of 
what  is,"  but  they  do  not  reach  "  the  sun  which  casts  these 
shadows."  Insufficiently  upheld  by  God,  whom  it  neither 
seeks  nor  loves,  reason  completes  its  work  in  but  very  few 
men.  Its  weak  and  fine-spun  thoughts,  its  partial  and 
broken  lights,  have  ceased  to  be  more  than  the  ruins  and 
fragments  of  integral  philosophy.  Better  simple  ignorance 
than  this  ignorance  which  ignores  itself ;  better  actual  night 
than  a  gloomy  twilight  which  deems  itself  broad  day,  and 
doubts  not  that  the  sun  is  shining. 

At  the  present  time,  therefore,  those  souls  in  whom  God 
has  placed  through  faith  the  source  of  light,  are  like  a 
clouded  sky,  in  which  the  sun  no  longer  beams ;  and  those 
others,  destitute  of  faith,  but  to  whom  God  still  sends  a  few 
rays  from  without,  are  like  the  Earth  when,  in  the  first  glim- 
mer of  dawn  which  puts  out  the  stars  without  yet  giving  us 
the  sun,  she  no  longer  sees  by  any  sign  that  her  light  cometh 
to  her  from  Heaven. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ARISTOTLE'S  THEODICY. 

LET  us  understand  plainly  that  the  question  of  the  proofs 
of  the  existence  of  God,  which  includes  that  of  his  at- 
tributes, is  not  a  question  of  any  particular  system  of  philos- 
ophy, but  is  the  question  of  philosophy  in  general.  The  effort 
of  the  intelligence  to  show  that  there  is  a  God,  is  the  search 
after  truth,  nothing  less.  In  treating  this  general  question, 
we  take  up  the  Theodicy,  consequently  Metaphysics;  we 
take  up  Logic,  because  we  are  concerned  with  one  of  the  two 
processes  of  reasoning,  and  that  the  chief  one.  We  must 
evidently  treat  of  Morals,  since  the  condition  without  which 
nothing  can  be  proved,  the  existence  of  God,  is  a  moral 
question,  a  free  act  of  our  soul ;  then  we  treat  of  Psy- 
chology, since  we  are  concerned  with  the  principal  acts  of 
both  the  intelligence  and  the  will :  we  are  at  the  point 
where  all  branches  of  philosophy  meet,  —  at  the  centre,  the 
root,  of  philosophy.  This  is  why  we  are  forced  first  to 
settle  this  supreme  question. 

Let  us  not  fear,  therefore,  to  dwell  as  long  as  may  be 
needful  upon  this  central  point,  which  includes  everything, 
—  even  the  history  of  philosophy. 

I. 

Aristotle  arrives  at  the  same  results  as  Plato.  For,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  course  of  this  work,  all  geniuses  of  the  first 
order  agree,  often  even  when  they  seem  or  believe  them- 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  63 

selves  to  be  in  opposition.  In  reality,  it  is  the  sophists 
who  contradict  one  another  and  contradict  the  philosophers. 
Cicero  declares  that  the  difference  between  the  Academy  and 
the  Portico  is  only  a  difference  of  words.1 

And  yet  it  must  be  said  that  if,  indeed,  the  great  results 
are  the  same,  there  is  more  than  a  difference  of  words,  there 
is  a  difference  in  the  method,  —  at  least  so  far  as  regards 
the  statement. 

There  are  two  processes  of  reasoning,  as  we  have  already 
said.  Now,  we  may  assert  and  distinctly  settle  this  point : 
Plato  represents  the  one,  and  Aristotle  the  other.  Plato  is 
above  all  else  dialectic ;  Aristotle  is  peculiarly  syllogistic. 
It  is  only  unconsciously  that  he  ever  handles  the  dialectic 
process,  and  he  gives  no  complete  analysis  of  it. 

And  yet  Aristotle  could  not  be  ignorant  of  these  two  in- 
tellectual processes,  and  he  calls  them  syllogism  and  induc- 
tion (eiraycoyr)).  He  says,  what  is  true,  that  induction  gives 
us  primary  causes ;  syllogism,  consequences*  He  sees,  what 
we  have  already  observed,  that  a  knowledge  of  primary 
causes  considered,  not  as  possible,  but  as  actual  and  existing, 
presupposes  experience  as  the  point  of  support  of  induction.2 
Thus  Aristotle  saw  the  facts. 

But  the  great  difference  between  Plato  and  Aristotle  is 
that  the  latter,  in  practice,  strove  to  find  everything,  or  at 
least  to  prove  everything,  by  syllogism ;  and  in  theory  he 
knew  neither  all  the  conditions  nor  all  the  compass  of  the  dia- 
lectic process.  He  even  denies,  in  Plato,  its  legitimacy ;  and 
if  he  himself  makes  use  of  it,  it  is  often  without  knowing  it, 
and  in  an  implied  form.  For  twenty  years  the  disciple  of 
Plato,  he  received  the  results  of  his  work.  He  had  in  ad- 
vance that  supreme  idea  of  God  given  us  by  the  chief  pro- 
cess of  reason,  used  by  Plato,  and  above  all  brought  to  us 

1  Academ.,  lib.  i.  cap.  ix. 

2  Analyt.  prior.,  lib.  i.  cap.  xxxi.  3. 


64  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

by  tradition  diffused  throughout  the  world,  and  to  which  he 
himself  alludes.  Aristotle  retains  all  these  data,  but  he  en- 
velops them  in  syllogisms,  so  that  we  lose  sight  of  the  way 
in  which  the  mind  obtains  them. 

There  occurs,  upon  this  point,  in  the  Theodicy,  between 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  what  occurred,  at  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  in  the  domain  of  geometry,  between  Leibnitz, 
the  inventor  of  the  Infinitesimal  Calculus,  and  a  famous  alge- 
braist,1 who  pretended  to  deny  the  discovery,  attacked  its  prin- 
ciples as  inexact  and  productive  of  error,  and  then  tried  to 
reproduce  and  demonstrate,  by  common  algebra,  the  results 
which  Leibnitz^  obtained  by  his  infinitesimal  method.  This 
adversary  of  Leibnitz  kept  the  Academy  of  Sciences  in  sus- 
pense for  several  years,  twenty  years  after  the  discovery.  A 
skilful  algebraist,  a  bold  calculator,  but  as  a  writer  wrapped 
in  obscurity,  as  Montucla  describes  him,  he  reached,  or 
seemed  to  reach,  by  vast  algebraic  circumlocutions,  and  end- 
less equations,  the  same  results  which  Leibnitz  found  by 
mere  play,  and  proved  with  such  marvellous  simplicity. 
Obscure  and  interminable  equations  enveloped  what  Leib- 
nitz analyzed,  explained,  and  made  clear  in  brief  and  simple 
formulas.  That  which  Leibnitz  found  by  the  infinitesimal 
method,  his  adversary  could  never  have  found  by  his  alge- 
braic method,  deductive  from  identity  to  identity;  but  the 
results  being  given,  he  sometimes  reproduced  them  by  dint  of 
hard  work.  Only,  in  his  obstinate  attempt  to  reproduce 
them  all,  there  were  instances  where  he  only  succeeded  by 
the  aid  of  false  calculations  and  incorrect  deductions,  forcing 
a  way  to  attain  the  wished-for  result. 

And  this  is  what  must  necessarily  happen,  in  metaphysics, 
to  those  who  insist  upon  forcing  their  way  by  continuous 
reasoning,  syllogism,  and  thus  reaching  from  creatures  to 
God,  from  finite  to  infinite.  Sceptics  stop  them,  and  readily 

1  See  Montucla,  Hist,  of  Mathematics,  ii.  360. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  65 

show  them  that  the  continuity  of  the  deduction  is  only  ap- 
parent, and  covers  up  voids  and  gulfs  which  only  the  other 
process  of  reasoning  can  bridge  over. 

Our  comparison  between  these  philosophers  and  geometri- 
cians is  faulty,  I  believe,  at  but  one  point :  that  is,  that  there 
was  no  equality  between  Leibnitz  and  his  foe,  while  between 
the  genius  of  Plato  and  that  of  Aristotle,  on  the  contrary, 
there  was  parity.  But  we  maintain  that  those  who  try  to 
establish  by  the  logic  of  deduction  the  results  produced  by 
the  other  process  of  reasoning,  are  like  the  mathematician 
who  denied  the  infinitesimal  calculus,  would  use  nothing 
but  common  algebra,  and  used  false  figures  in  order  to  do 
without  the  infinitesimal  method. 

Did  Aristotle  use  false  trains  of  reasoning  to  establish 
the  same  results  as  Plato,  though  without  succeeding  at  all 
points  ?  We  dare  not  affirm  that  he  did ;  we  submit  the 
question  to  those  who  think  themselves  competent  to  answer 
it.  It  would  be  a  curious  study  in  logic.  But  it  is  certain 
that  Plato  is  simple  and  luminous,  and  Aristotle  is  involved 
and  obscure ;  that  the  Platonic  dialectic  is  poetic  and  popu- 
lar ;  and  that  the  Aristotelian  syllogisms,  on  the  question  of 
first  principles,  are  so  extremely  difficult  and  subtle  that 
the  best-equipped  intellects  would  find  it  a  long  and  difficult 
task  to  decide  whether  the  proofs  be  exact  or  not.  Kant, 
we  are  all  aware,  pronounced  them  false;  only  he  treats  all 
the  rest  no  better.  But  when  h2  sets  forth  the  type,  which, 
in  his  opinion,  affords  the  true  proof,  that  type  is  nothing 
else,  it  seems,  but  the  dialectic  of  Plato  with  its  double  logi- 
cal and  moral  condition. 

II. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  let  us  try  to  face  the  proofs  of  the  exis- 
tence of  God  as  set  forth  by  Aristotle.  We  will  not  at  first 
refer  to  the  original.  We  will  take  Aristotle  as  explained 


66  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  whose  genius  is  quite  as  power- 
ful, but  much  more  lucid  than  that  of  Aristotle.  We  are 
fortunate  to  find  such  a  guide.  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas 
takes  his  instances  from  Aristotle's  collective  works,  he 
having  commented  upon  them  all,  and  he  sums  them  up 
as  follows  in  his  Summa  Contra  Gentes.1 
We  quote  literally :  — 

"  Having  proved  that  it  is  possible  to  demonstrate  the  exis- 
tence of  God,  let  us  consider  such  proofs  of  it  as  have  been  given 
to  us." 

"  Here  are  those  of  Aristotle,  who  tries  to  prove  the  existence  of 
God  in  two  ways,  from  the  fact  of  motion." 

"First  proof.  Everything  which  is  in  motion  is  moved  by 
something.  Now,  our  senses  show  us  that  something  moves,  the 
sun,  for  instance.  Therefore  it  is  moved  by  some  other  thing  which 
moves  it.  Moreover,  either  that  other  motor  is  a  motion,  or  it  is 
motionless.  If  it  be  motionless,  our  assertion  is  proved,  namely ; 
that  it  is  essential  to  establish  a  motionless  motor,  which  is  God. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  it  be  in  motion,  it  is  moved  by  some  other 
motor.  We  must,  therefore,  either  go  on  in  this  way  forever,  or 
come  at  last  to  the  motionless  motor.  But  it  is  impossible  to  go 
on  thus  forever.  Accordingly,  we  must  affirm  the  existence  of  a 
primary  motionless  motor." 

"But  in  this  proof  there  are  two  propositions  to  be  proved, 
namely :  That  every  moving  thing  in  motion  is  moved  by  a 
motor  other  than  itself,  and  that  we  cannot  admit  of  an  infinite 
series  of  motors." 

"  Aristotle  proves  the  first  proposition  in  three  ways  :  — 

"  1st.  If  a  motor  be  self-moving,  it  must  contain  in  itself  the 
primary  cause  of  its  motion  ;  otherwise  it  is  plain  that  it  i&  moved 
by  some  other  motor.  It  must  also  be  moved  by  a  primary  move- 
ment ;  that  is  to  say,  by  itself,  and  not  by  one  of  its  parts,  like  an 
animal  borne  along  by  the  motion  of  its  feet.  For  in  this  first 
case  the  whole  would  not  be  moved  by  itself,  but  by  its  part,  and 
one  part  by  the  other.2  This  motor  which  moves  must  itself  also 
be  divisible,  have  parts ;  for  everything  that  moves  is  divisible,  as 

1  Lib.  i.  cap.  iii.  2  Physics,  book  vii.,  opening  pages. 


ARISTOTLE'S  THEODICY.  67 

is  proved  in  the  sixth  book  of  the  Physics.  This  settled,  the  phi- 
losopher reasons  thus  :  — 

"  Everything  which  we  suppose  is  self-moving  is  moved  by  a 
primary  motion.  Therefore,  inaction  of  one  of  its  parts  involves 
the  inaction  of  all.  For  if  the  inaction  of  one  part  leaves  the  other 
part  in  motion,  it  ceases  to  be  the  whole  itself  which  moves  by  a 
primary  motion ;  it  is  that  part  alone,  since  it  continues  to  move 
while  the  other  part  is  at  rest.  But  nothing  which  stops  as  soon 
as  another  thing  stops  is  self-moving ;  for  that  object  whose  cessa- 
tion involves  the  cessation  of  the  other,  is  also  that  whose  motion 
involves  the  motion  of  the  other  ;  therefore  that  other  is  not  self- 
moving.  Accordingly,  that  which  we  supposed  to  be  self-moving 
does  not  actually  move  of  its  own  impulse.  Accordingly,  finally, 
all  which  is  in  motion  is  necessarily  moved  by  some  motor  other 
than  itself." 

"We  cannot  destroy  this  reasoning  by  saying  that  what  is 
supposed  to  be  self-moving  can  have  no  part  of  it  in  repose ; 
and  again,  that  the  part  can  neither  stop,  nor  move,  save  by 
accident,  as  Avicenna  so  scandalously  holds  (ut  Avicenna  calum- 
niatur).  In  reality,  the  whole  force  ot  this  reasoning  lies  in  the 
fact  that  if  anything  be  self-moving  by  a  primary  movement,  and 
of  itself,  not  by  reason  of  its  parts,  it  follows  that  its  motion  no 
longer  depends  upon  an  outside  motor.  Now,  the  movement  of 
the  divisible,  as  well  as  its  being,  depends  on  the  being  and  move- 
ment of  its  parts ;  hence  it  cannot  move  of  itself  by  a  primary 
motion.  It  is  therefore  not  essential  to  the  truth  of  the  condi- 
tional proposition  inferred  here,  that  we  should  admit  as  abso- 
lutely true  that  the  part  moves  in  the  inaction  of  the  whole ;  it  is 
enough  that  the  sum-total  of  this  conditional  proposition  is  true ; 
namely,  That  if  the  part  be  at  rest,  the  whole  will  be  at  rest. 
And  it  may  be  true  even  if  the  antecedent  proposition  were 
impossible  ;  as  in  this  instance :  If  a  man  were  an  ass,  he  would 
be  an  irrational  animal." 

"  2d.    Aristotle  again  proves  the  same  proposition  as  follows  : a 

"  Everything  that  moves  by  accident  does  not  move  of  itself, 
but  is  moved  by  the  movement  of  some  other  thing ;  this  is  evi- 
dent ;  neither  that  which  moves  naturally,  by  an  inward  motion, 

1  Physics,  text,  comm.,  xxvii.  ct  infra. 


68  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

as  the  animal  whose  body  is  only  moved  by  the  soul ;  nor  that 
which  is  moved  by  nature,  by  an  outward  motion,  as  heavy  bodies ; 
for  everything  of  this  kind  moves  only  by  the  way  of  generation 
or  else  by  the  removal  of  an  obstacle.  Now,  all  that  is  moved  is 
moved  either  by  accident  or  by  itself.  If  by  itself,  .  .  .  etc." 

Let  us  stop  here.  What  will  it  profit  us  to  prolong  this 
endless  chain  of  propositions,  each  more  obscure  and  more 
incomprehensible  than  the  other  ?  What  reader  would 
follow  us?  Who  now  believes  in  this  mode  of  reasoning? 
The  seventeenth  century  banished  it  under  the  name  of 
Aristotelianism. 

What  we  have  just  quoted  is  but  a  fourth  part  of  the 
demonstration.  We  had  yet  to  finish  the  second  mode  in 
which  Aristotle  proves  his  major :  All  that  is  in  motion  is 
moved  by  something  other  than  itself.  Then  we  should  also 
be  forced  to  give  the  third  mode  of  proving  that  same  major. 
After  that  there  would  still  remain  three  other  ways  of  prov- 
ing the  minor,  namely :  That  there  is  not  an  infinite  series  of 
motors.  Then  only  would  the  syllogism  be  demonstrated. 

Lastly,  we  should  have  to  set  forth  the  second  syllogism, 
which  Aristotle  also  uses  to  prove,  from  motion,  the  existence 
of  God.  We  shall  not  undertake  such  a  task,  but  shall  con- 
fine ourselves  to  a  closer  study  of  the  basis  of  the  line  of  rea- 
soning which  we  have  just  shown.  What  we  have  thus  far 
quoted  includes  all  its  postulates. 

III. 

Aristotle  takes  the  position,  There  is  motion. 

And  from  this  he  concludes :  Therefore  there  is  a  first 
motionless  motor.  We  call  this  God. 

Now,  there  are  in  this  train  of  reasoning  words  which  can 
in  no  wise  be  filled  by  the  syllogisms  which  we  have  just 
repeated. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  69 

What !  from  seeing  motion  shall  we  infer  the  motionless, 
by  syllogism,  by  means  of  identity  ? 

That  is  to  say  that  from  the  variable  we  infer  immuta- 
bility; from  the  imperfect,  perfection;  or  from  the  finite, 
infinity !  Let  any  one  show  us  a  genuine  syllogism  which 
establishes  such  inference  from  the  fact  of  motion  presented 
by  the  senses. 

Where  are  the  passage  and  the  middle  term  between  these 
two  worlds  ?  How  can  we  derive  immutability  from  motion 
by  means  of  deduction  ?  Clearly,  it  is  impossible. 

Most  assuredly  it  was  none  of  these  arguments  that  led 
Aristotle  to  assert  immobility  from  seeing  motion. 

This  conclusion  involves  a  long  story  in  the  career  of  the 
human  mind.  Heraclitus  spent  his  life  in  saying,  Every- 
thing passes,  everything  slips  away  (TTCWTCL  pee/) ;  and  amidst 
these  passing  waves  he  never  perceived  the  immutable. 
This  was  the  cause  of  his  sorrow.  And  that  sublime  regret 
—  a  sense  of  the  imperfection  of  this  changing  world,  a  long- 
ing for  immutability — did  not  lead  him  up  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  immutable  exists.  He  understood  motion  and  its 
strange  significance,  but  nothing  more.  Plato  also  under- 
stood motion,  and  he  said :  All  that  we  see  slips  away  ;• 
everything  passes,  is  born,  and  dies  ;  and  we  behold  nothing 
that  does  not  change.  But  having  said  this,  Plato  did 
not  confine  himself  to  regret.  The  contrast  between  this 
changing  spectacle,  this  perishable  nature,  and  an  innate 
longing  for  perfection,  immutability,  and  immortality,  awoke 
in  his  soul  that  memory  of  the  eternal,  unchanging,  and  per- 
fect Being  which  our  soul  also  feels ;  and  he  asserted  the 
existence  of  the  immovable  on  the  occasion  of  that  which 
passes.  And  this  very  point  was  the  basis  of  his  whole  pro- 
cess and  his  whole  doctrine. 

Aristotle,  therefore,  was  furnished  in  the  advance  with  this 
result,  which  cannot  be  obtained  otherwise.  Aristotle  pos- 


70  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

sesses  the  truth  and  strives  to  set  it  forth.  To  explain  it 
he  wraps  it  in  syllogisms.  This  seems  clear  to  those  who  are 
beginning  to  think;  and  Aristotle  taught.  These  syllogisms, 
with  which  it  was  impossible  to  find  the  truth,  were  no  more 
useful  to  prove  it;  they  throw  no  light  upon  it,  —  they  veil  it. 
We  can  scarce  recognize  it  under  this  disguise.  We  may 
even  question  whether  they  do  not  destroy  it,  and  whether 
there  are  not  gross  faults  of  logic  in  this  chain  of  reasoning. 
Who  will  prove  the  contrary  ?  Who 'will  sift  all  the  mean- 
ings of  the  words  motion,  immobility,  immutability,  and 
inertia,  to  learn  whether,  in  one  of  the  links  in  his  chain, 
Aristotle  does  not  confuse  them  ? 

To  Aristotle,  the  idea  of  motion  is  identical  with  that  'of 
change.1  He  defines  motion  as  the  transition  from  poten- 
tiality to  act? 

Plato  made  motion  synonymous  with  life  (KLV^CTLV  teal 
%wi]v\  and  thence  placed  motion  in  the  absolute,  infinite 
Being  (KLVVJO-IV  teal  farjv  .  .  .  rc3  Traz/reXaK  OVTL).  Now, 
Aristotle  himself  sometimes  takes  motion  in  the  same  sense 
as  Plato,  as  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  remarks. 

Nevertheless,  in  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  through 
motion,  it  is  clear  that  motion  is  understood  in  the  sense  of 
change,  or  of  the  transition  from  potentiality  to  act. 

This  established,  let  us  put  Aristotle's  reasoning  into 
exact  form,  and  see  if  it  be  possible  for  us  to  judge  from 
it,  to  admit  it  or  to  deny  it. 

The  entire  chain  of  reasoning  may  be  reduced  to  the  two 
following  syllogisms :  — 

FIRST  SYLLOGISM. 

Major.  Everything  in  motion  is  moved  by  a  motor  other  than 
itself;  in  other  words,  nothing  moves  of  itself. 

Minor.     Now,  our  eyes  show  us  the  fact  of  motion. 

1  Metaph.,  xi.  11,  12.     We  quote  from  the  Berlin  edition. 

2  Ibid.,  xi.  9. 


ARISTOTLE'S  THEODICY.  71 

Conclusion.  Therefore,  there  is  something  else  which  moves  that 
-which  we  see  in  motion. 

SECOND  SYLLOGISM. 

Major.  There  cannot  be  an  infinite  series  of  motors ;  in  other 
words,  there  can  only  be  a  finite  series  of  motors ;  in  other  words, 
there  is  one  first  motor. 

Minor.  Now,  this  motor  would  not  be  the  first  if  it  were  in 
motion,  since  it  would  then  be  moved  by  some  other  thing  (as 
results  from  the  first  major). 

Conclusion.  Therefore,  there  is  one  first  motionless  motor.  We 
call  this  God. 

These  syllogisms  are  correct  in  form,  but  are  they  true  as 
facts  ? 

We  see  at  the  first  glance  that  they  are  true  if  the  majors 
be  true.  But  who  will  prove  those  majors  ?  There  lie  the 
yawning  voids. 

For  instance,  how  can  we  prove  by  syllogism,  starting  from 
an  obvious  general  proposition,  that  nothing  moves  of  itself  ? 
Yet  Aristotle  tries  to  do  so.  It  is  in  this  way  that  he  tries 
to  establish  the  existence  of  the  one  first  motionless  motor ; 
that  is,  the  existence  of  God. 

He  makes  the  attempt ;  we  have  seen  his  efforts  to  prove 
the  first  major,  namely,  "  that  everything  in  motion  is  moved 
~by  a  motor  other  than  itself."  But  his  arguments  on  this 
point  are  so  subtle  and  so  doubtful  that  Avicenna  claims 
that  the  reasoning  is  false ;  and  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  who 
considers  Avicenna's  objection  scandalous  (ut  Avicenna  ca- 
lumniatur),  is  still  forced  to  confess  that  the  argument  rests 
on  a  conditional  proposition,  whose  condition  may  be  impos- 
sible or  contradictory,  as  in  this :  If  man  be  an  ass,  he  is  an 
irrational  animal  (Si  homo  est  asinus,  est  irrationalis). 

Who  shall  be  the  judge  ?  Is  the  argument  good  ?  I  know 
not,  being  unable  to  understand  all  parts  of  it.  Is  it  false, 
on  account  of  the  contradictory  conditional  ?  I  dare  not  say 


72  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

so,  for  even  in  algebra  we  introduce  and  calculate  with  imagi- 
nary quantities,  that  is,  impossibilities  and  contradictions. 
What  I  assert  is  that  these  syllogisms  are,  to  say  the  least, 
not  valid ;  they  do  not  discover  the  great  truth  which  they 
contain ;  they  do  not  make  it  manifest,  and  if,  strictly  speak- 
ing, they  demonstrate  it,  it  is  because  they  include  the  other 
process  of  reasoning. 

Moreover,  Aristotle  never  puts  his  arguments  into  such 
scholastic  form  as  Saint  Thomas  has  done  here.  But  it  is 
certain  that  he  generally  tries  to  deduce  everything  by  syllo- 
gism from  an  evident  fact  or  an  abstract  major.  He  seldom 
advances  in  his  statement  by  any  other  than  the  deductive 
process  of  reasoning ;  and  this  annoying  habit  often  deprives 
his  reasoning  —  I  refer  to  the  reasoning  only  —  of  its  clear- 
ness, validity,  utility,  sometimes  perhaps  its  solidity. 

Does  it  follow  from  this  that  Aristotle's  Theodicy  contains 
nothing  new  or  valuable?  Far  from  it;  and  we  will  now 
attempt  to  show  what  he  accomplished. 

IV. 

If  Aristotle  be  syllogistic  in  his  statement,  proceeding  by 
abstract  majors  and  deductions,  we  cannot  conclude  from  this 
that  in  his  inner  mental  action  he  retained  nothing  of  the 
other  process  of  reasoning.  We  have  already  said,  and  we 
shall  show  when  we  come  to  logic,  that  he  mentions  and 
clearly  distinguishes  between  the  two  processes  of  reasoning, 
attributing  to  the  one  the  invention  of  majors,  and  to  the 
other  deduction.  In  his  profound  meditations  he  made  use 
—  he  could  not  but  make  use  —  of  the  sublime  process  which 
leads  to  God.  But  he  generally  managed  to  use  it  unawares, 
like  the  majority  of  mankind,  and  concealed,  through  a  trick 
of  style,  his  mode  of  discovery  by  a  very  different  mode  of 
statement  and  proof. 


ARISTOTLE'S  THEODICY.  73 

Be  this  as  it  may,  not  only  did  this  powerful  genius  renew 
in  his  thought  the  data  of  tradition  in  regard  to  God,  and 
the  results  of  the  Platonic  method ;  but  we  may  also  say 
that  on  several  points,  not  on  all,  he  gave  clearness  and  pre- 
cision to  Plato's  theology.  Had  he  added  to  the  theodicy 
nothing  but  the  three  words,  God  is  pure  act,  —  a  formula 
which  has  been  marvellously  commented  upon  and  used  in 
every  way  by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  —  he  would  have  given 
the  human  mind  an  idea  of  capital  significance. 

To  judge  Aristotle,  we  should  know  the  last  chapters  of 
the  twelfth  book  of  his  Metaphysics. 

We  will  try  to  give  an  idea  of  these  chapters  by  quotations 
and  brief  commentaries.  Our  quotations  will  be  given  in 
exactly  the  order  in  which  they  occur  in  the  original.  We 
shall  glean  the  truth  from  these  chapters,  setting  aside  the 
often  inexact  reasoning  which  he  brings  to  bear  upon  it,  as 
well  as  his  errors  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  physical 
heavens,  the  imperishable  nature  of  the  stars,  and  the  eter- 
nity of  the  world,  —  errors  to  correspond  with  which  there  are 
other  metaphysical  errors  and  inexplicable  contradictions. 
In  spite  of  these  exceptions,  these  chapters  are  still  a  truly 
admirable  summary  of  a  theodicy. 

"  There  are  three  essences,  two  of  which  are  natural,  and 
one  immutable.  .  .  .  For  there  must  necessarily  be  one 
eternal,  unchanging  essence."1 

Yes,  there  are  two  natural  or  created  essences,  mind  and 
matter ;  one  immutable  or  uncreated,  which  is  God.  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas  explains  this  as  follows :  "  There  are  two 
substances  which  are  natural,  because  there  is  motion  in 
them ;  besides  these  two  substances,  there  is  a  third  which 
is  immovable  or  immutable,  and  no  longer  natural."  Nat- 

1  Metaph.,  xii.  6.  It  is  a  mistake  to  translate  this:  "There  are  three  es- 
sences, two  physical,  the  other  immutable,"  for  the  word  physical  does  not 
mean  natural,  but  corporeal.  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  translates  it  with  perfect 
accuracy:  ducB  quidem  naturales. 


74  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

ural,  mobile,  subject  to  change,  are  one  and  the  same  thing, 
according  to  Aristotle ;  as  also,  on  the  other  hand,  immobile, 
immutable,  eternal,  and  supernatural  are  terms  each  of  which 
includes  the  other.  Pascal  expresses  the  same  truth  in  other 
words :  "  There  are  three  worlds,  —  the  world  of  bodies, 
the  world  of  mind,  and  the  third,  which  is  supernatural, 
which  is  God."  This  had  been  established  by  Genesis  long 
before :  "  In  the  beginning  God  made  heaven  and  earth  ;  " 
where  we  must  understand,  with  the  Fourth  Council  of  the 
Lateran,  that  heaven  and  earth  signify  mind  and  matter, 
natural  things,  which  began,  which  were  born. 

"  There  must,"  adds  Aristotle,  "  be  a  first  cause  such  that 
its  essence  is  pure  act." 1 

Otherwise  the  world  could  not  exist,  as  Aristotle  says. 
This  the  sophists  ignore,  who  believe  that  Being  began  with 
a  mere  potentiality  or  possibility,  —  which  is  the  same  as 
saying  that  effects  can  exist  without  a  cause. 

"  A  being  which  moves  without  being  moved  is  eternal,  is 
pure  essence,  is  pure  act.  "  2 

The  formula  —  God  is  pure  essence  ;  God  is  pure  act  —  is 
immensely  fruitful.  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  who  develops  it 
by  the  light  of  his  Christian  genius,  superior  as  such  to  that 
of  Aristotle,  extracts  genuine  treasures  from  it,  discovers 
wonderful  depths  of  meaning  in  it.  We  will  only  say  here, 
in  a  few  words,  that  when  we  know  that  God  is  pure  essence, 
that  is,  that  all  is  essential  in  God,  we  know  that  in  him  there 
is  no  accident,  no  variable  or  secondary  qualities.  His  being 
is  his  essence, —  that  is  to  say,  it  is  necessary;  his  knowl- 
edge is  his  essence,  his  will  is  his  essence,  his  blessedness  is 
his  essence.  When  we  knqw  that  God  is  pure  act,  —  in  other 
words,  that  in  him  everything  is  act,  —  we  know  that  there 
is  not  in  him,  as  in  us,  virtual  and  actual,  possible  and  real, 
potentiality  and  act,  but  that  with  God  all  that  is  possible 

i  Metaph.,  xii.  6.  2  ibid.,  /. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  75 

is  actual ;  that  there  is  nothing  in  him  to  be  developed  or 
completed ;  that  he  is  already  perfect ;  that  he  is  not,  like  his 
creatures,  capable  of  indefinite  development,  but  that  he  is 
already  now,  if  we  may  so  express  it,  infinitely  developed. 
This  establishes  absolutely  the  distinction  between  the  finite 
and  the  infinite.  To  be  pure  essence  and  pure  act  is  pre- 
cisely the  divine  characteristic  of  infinity.  At  least,  this 
is  what  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  asserts  in  these  formulas, 
whether  or  no  Aristotle  ever  perceived  it. 

What  immediately  follows  in  the  original  is  both  clear  and 
profound.  It  is  the  way  in  which  the  one  first  motionless 
motor  moves  the  other  two  essences. 

"  It  moves  thus.  The  desirable  and  the  intelligible  moves 
without  being  moved.  ...  It  moves  as  the  object  of  love." l 

"  The  supreme,  desirable,  and  intelligible  are  one  and  the 
same  thing  (TOVTWV  TO,  Trpwra  ra  avrd)" 

This  essence  moves  as  the  object  of  love;  it  attracts. 
Here  we  have  the  universal  charm  or  attraction  of  the 
desirable  and  intelligible,  which,  according  to  Aristotle,  at- 
tracts everything,  material  and  spiritual,  each  in  its  way, 
and  which  causes,  without  exception,  all  motion,  —  that  uni- 
versal attraction  of  which  physics  now  knows  something, 
and  with  which  psychology,  let  us  hope,  will  some  day  be 
familiar  as  the  original  source  of  all  motion,  all  facts,  the 
entire  history  of  the  soul.  And  here  Aristotle  makes  this 
important  remark  by  the  way :  "  The  object  of  desire  is  the 
apparition  of  the  Beautiful ;  but  the  object  of  will  is  the 
Beautiful  itself."2 

Furthermore  :  "  So  soon  as  there  is  a  being  which  moves, 
although  motionless,  and  which  is  motionless,  although  in 
action,  that  being  ceases  to  be  subject  to  change." 

"  This  motor,  then,  is  a  necessary  being ;  and  in  so  far 
as  necessary,  is  the  Good,  and  is  the  First  Cause." 

1  Metaph.,  xii.  7.  2  Ibid. 


76  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

"  Such  is  the  First  Cause,  upon  which  hang  heaven  and 
earth."  l 

This  reminds  us  of  Plato's  statement  that  "  the  divine  is 
bound  to  us  by  the  very  roots  of  our  being ; "  and  that  other 
Platonic  doctrine,  that  "  the  First  Cause  is  the  Good  itself." 

Here,  now,  is  what  the  First  Cause  actually  is  :  — 

"  We  taste  fugitive  happiness ;  he  possesses  it  forever." 
"  His  happiness  is  his  very  act ;  to  be  awake,  to  feel,  to  think, 
is  our  good ;  afterwards,  memory  and  hope." 2 

But  what  is  his  act  or  his  happiness  ?    It  is  thought  in  itself. 

"But  thought  in  itself  is  the  thought  of  the  best  in  itself;  and 
the  thought  above  all  other  thought  is  that  of  the  Good  above  all 
other  good.  Now,  thought  thinks  itself  by  grasping  the  intelligible, 
and  it  becomes  intelligible  by  this  contact  and  this  thinking ;  so 
that  the  thought  and  its  object  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  To 
grasp  the  intelligible,  to  grasp  the  essence,  is  thought :  this  very 
possession  is  its  act.  And  this  act,  which  constitutes  all  thought, 
has,  it  seems,  a  divine  character ;  so  that  contemplation  is  cer- 
tainly happiness  and  perfection." 

"  But  if  God  continually  tastes  this  happiness,  of  which  man 
can  only  enjoy  the  fugitive  taste,  assuredly  his  bliss  is  wonderful ; 
more  wonderful  still  if  this  happiness  is  greater  in  him  than  it  is 
in  us.  Now,  it  is  so.  For  this  very  thing,  this  happiness  itself, 
is  his  life ;  the  intelligible  in  act  is  life  ;  now,  he  is  all  act ;  so 
the  act  in  itself  is  his  life,  eternal  and  supreme  life.  We  call  God 
a  perfect  and  eternal  living  being,  because  continual  and  eternal 
life  is  in  him;  or  rather,  that  life  itself  is  God."3 

Certainly,  this  is  a  truly  profound  contribution  to  the  The- 
odicy, full  of  most  fruitful  and  luminous  points,  although 
they  are  but  slightly  developed,  and  thus  very  remote  from 
our  habits  of  thought,  which  demand  so  many  explanations. 
It  is  plain  that  we  have  here  a  powerful  implicit  light,  and 
that  it  is  not  easy  for  human  reason  to  go  higher,  or  to 
see  farther. 

i  Metaph.,  xii.  7.  2  Ibid.  8  Ibid. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  77 

In  this  extract  we  have  some  faint  vision  of  deep  mys- 
teries. When  Leibnitz  observes  the  amazing  phenomenon 
of  the  reflection  of  minds,  which  consists  in  the  fact  "  that  a 
mind  is  itself  its  own  immediate  object  and  acts  upon  itself, 
thinking  of  itself  and  of  what  it  has  done  ;  "  1  when  he  recog- 
nizes "  that  this  reduplication  gives  in  a  similar  absolute  sub- 
stance an  image  of  two  respective  substances,  that  which 
understands  and  that  which  is  understood,"  and  when,  more- 
over, he  considers  that  "  that  which  is  modal,  accidental, 
imperfect,  and  changeable  in  us,  is  real,  essential,  complete, 
and  immutable  in  God,"  Leibnitz  sees  in  this  reduplication, 
as  it  were,  a  trace  of  the  plurality  of  divine  persons  in  the 
Unity  of  God.  It  seems  to  us  that  this  is  exactly  what 
Aristotle,  unconsciously,  no  doubt,  catches  a  glimpse  of  here 
both  in  the  soul  and  in  God. 

He  calls  these  three  principles  :  1.  Good  in  itself  (TO  /ca0y 
avro  apiorrov).  2.  Thought  in  itself  (vorjais  77  /caO'  avrrjv). 
3.  Act  or  Life  in  itself  (evepyeia  Be  77  /caO'  avrrjv  e/ceivov 


But  thought  in  itself  is  thought  of  the  Good  in  itself  (r;  Be 
rj  /ca6'  avTrjv  rov  Kad'  avro  aplcrrov)  ;  and  thought 
and  its  object,  the  Good,  are  one  and  the  same  thing  (wo-re 
TCLVTOV  vovs  KOii  vo^Tov).  But  this  mutual  possession  of 
thought  and  its  object  is  its  act  (euepyel  Se  excov)  ;  this  act 
in  itself  is  the  life  of  God  (Ixeivov  fw??)  ;  and  this  excellent, 
eternal  life  is  God  himself  (TOVTO  yap  6  ®eo<?).  So  that  the 
Good,  thought,  and  life,  which  mutually  possess  one  another, 
are  one  and  the  same  thing,  and  all  this  is  God. 

But  what  we  should  particularly  note  in  this  quotation  is 
the  method  manifestly  implied  in  it. 

This  method  is  precisely  that  of  the  Platonic  dialectic  :  it 
is  the  only  and  the  true  method  by  which  to  lift  one's  self 
to  God;  it  is  the  chief  process  of  reasoning,  a  process  so 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  24,  complete  works. 


78  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

natural,  simple,  and  direct,  so  native  to  reason,  that  all 
men,  even  self-observant  thinkers,  employ  it  without  knowing 
it,  —  a  process,  in  fine,  which  consists,  when  God  is  its  sub- 
ject, in  attributing  to  the  infinite  those  finite  qualities  which 
we  find  in  ourselves.  This  is  Leibnitz's  remark :  "  God's  per- 
fections are  those  of  our  own  souls,  without  the  limits  to  be 
found  there." 

"  We  taste  a  fugitive  happiness,"  says  Aristotle ;  "  he  pos- 
sesses it  forever." 

We  find  fugitive  happiness  within  ourselves;  the  mind 
grasps  this  idea  of  happiness,  destroys  limitations,  does  away 
with  time,  the  past,  the  future,  all  change,  thus  makes  hap- 
piness eternal,  and  attributes  it  to  God. 

This  is  not  all.  What  is  this  happiness  ?  To  be  awake, 
to  think,  to  feel,  to  live,  in  brief,  this  is  our  good.  All  this 
is  ours  partially ;  all  this,  therefore,  must  be  God's  absolutely, 
infinitely. 

He  is  forever  awake,  since  he  is  all  act ;  there  is  in  him 
nothing  latent  or  dormant ;  nothing  which  sleeps  in  the  pos- 
sible and  awaits  the  future;  no  force  which  rests  while  pre- 
paring its  act :  all  is  already  act. 

He  thinks  absolutely.  His  thought  is  thought  in  itself ; 
it  thinks  the  Good  above  all  good ;  and  moreover  it  is  that 
which  it  thinks.  We,  when  we  think,  try  to  touch  and  to  see 
the  intelligible,  which  may  be  momentarily  permitted  to  us ; 
he  not  only  sees  and  touches  the  intelligible,  but  he  is  him- 
self that  intelligible.  His  thought  does  not  approach  the 
goal  more  or  less  closely,  it  is  the  goal. 

He  lives  absolutely,  infinitely,  since  his  life  is  no  other 
than  this  act  itself,  this  mutual  penetration,  and  this  iden- 
tity of  the  intelligent  and  the  intelligible,  and  since  not 
only  he  has  this  life,  supreme  and  eternal,  but  what  is  the 
crowning  point,  he  is  himself  this  life.  He  is  eternal  and 
perfect  life. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  79 

So  that  plainly  Aristotle  rises  here  from  what  he  sees  in 
us  to  God,  and  passes  from  the  one  to  the  other,  positing  the 
infinite  everywhere,  urging  everything  towards  the  absolute, 
by  the  suppression  of  all  limitations. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  pure  act  is  especially  worthy  of 
attention  in  this  connection.  We  see  in  everything  poten- 
tiality and  act,  possible  and  actual;  everything  that  lives, 
becomes,  grows,  tends  towards  a  superior  limitation,  which  it 
is  as  impossible  to  reach  as  it  is  by  adding  unities  to  unities 
to  reach  infinity ;  there  will  always  be  some  possibility  to  be 
developed  in  us,  some  future  to  be  realized :  this  is  the  in- 
superable and  necessary  gulf  which  divides  the  finite  and  the 
infinite.  Well !  there  is  a  Being  who  does  not  become,  who 
is ;  who  is  absolutely,  who  is  that  superior  limitation  towards 
which  everything  moves  and  which  nothing  can  ever  reach, 
because  we  do  not  become  infinite;  we  are  infinite.  He 
therefore  is  infinite;  he  is  absolute  development,  complete 
and  unlimited  life,  and  the  infinity  of  potentialities  already 
realized.  It  was  in  this  sense  that  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas 
said,  "  God  is  the  absolute  actuality  of  all  things  "  (Deus  est 
actualitas  omnium  rerum).  This  is  what  modern  sophists 
fail  to  understand.  But  this  is  surely  the  sovereign  idea 
which  all  reason  seeks  through  every  finite  postulate;  this 
is  surely  the  rational  process  above  all  processes:  to  rise 
from  finite  to  infinite,  from  all  to  God. 

Furthermore :  "  That  there  is  an  eternal,  immovable  sub- 
stance, distinct  from  sensible  things,  is  plain  from  what  we 
have  just  said.  It  is  also  plain  that  this  substance  has  no 
particular  size,  but  that  it  is  without  parts,  that  it  is  indi- 
visible. It  moves  for  an  infinite  time,  and  nothing  finite  has 
an  infinite  force."1 

In  all  these  statements  there  are  exact  mathematical 
truths.  We  see  here  the  origin  of  the  strict  idea  of  the  infi- 
1  Metaph.,  xii.  7. 


80         .      GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

nite.  Aristotle  here  catches  a  glimpse  of  that  formula  of 
prime  importance  which  was  not  expressed  until  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  even  then  imperfectly  and  not  by  all : 
that  that  which  is  infinite  in  one  sense,  is  infinite  in  every 
sense ;  that  that  which  is  finite  in  a  single  sense  is  finite  in 
every  sense;  that  the  finite  and  the  infinite  are  absolutely 
incommunicable ;  but  that  botli  exist ;  that  there  are  two  nat- 
ural, finite  substances,  which  we  see ;  that  there  is  one  eter- 
nal, immovable,  infinite  (without  special  size),  indivisible,  and 
absolutely  continuous  substance.  Aristotle  understood  that 
the  infinite,  the  continuous,  the  indivisible,  the  eternal,  and 
the  essential  are  one  and  the  same.  Elsewhere,  however,  he 
wavers,  and  of  the  two  natural  and  movable  substances  he 
makes  one,  the  heaven,  eternal  and  movable  during  an  in- 
finite time.  This  is  his  mistake  in  regard  to  the  eternity 
of  the  world,  —  a  mistake  which  contradicts  his  own  formu- 
las. He  ought  to  see  that  nothing  eternal  can  be  finite,  or 
that  nothing  finite  can  be  of  infinite  duration;  as  he  sees 
that  nothing  finite  can  have  infinite  power.  This  is  the 
same  thing. 

V. 

A  question  now  remains  to  be  solved,  which  we  should 
scarcely  have  expected  to  see  Aristotle  consider,  it  seems  to 
us  so  simple. 

"  Must  this  essence  be  regarded  as  unique  ?  or  are  there 
several  of  them  ?  And  if  there  are  several,  how  many  are 
there  ? " l 

Now,  here  we  find  in  the  text  an  apparent  contradiction 
of  so  singular  a  nature  that  the  author  of  the  finest  modern 
work  on  Aristotle  which  we  have,2  does  not  fear  to  assert 
that  one  of  the  terms  of  the  contradiction  is  nothing  else 
than  a  thesis,  which  Aristotle  first  develops,  that  he  may 

1  Metaph.,  xii.  8.  2  M.  Ravaisson. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  81 

contest  it  later ;  as,  for  instance,  when  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas  begins  his  theses  by  positing  the  antitheses.  But 
this  explanation  does  not  really  agree  with  the  text.1  Aris- 
totle admitted  that  the  world  was  eternal :  this  was  a  source 
of  error  to  him.  He  is  obliged  to  admit,  as  it  were  by 
consequences,  not  only  a  first  God,  but  other  secondary 
Gods,  also  eternal,  immovable,  and  indivisible.  But  neither 
the  ancients  nor  Saint  Thomas  mention  the  smallest  contra- 
diction in  this  chapter.  There  is  no  contradiction,  there  are 
errors.  Aristotle  begins  by  declaring  that  "  the  primary 
cause  of  beings,  the  first  being,  is  motionless,  whether  in 
himself  or  accidentally,  and  that  it  is  he  who  imparts  to 
everything  the  first,  eternal,  and  simple  motion.2  But,"  he 
adds,  "  besides  the  simple,  universal  motion,  which  we  say  is 
produced  by  the  essence  of  the  prime  immovable,  we  also 
see  in  the  world  other  eternal  motions,  those  of  the  planets,3 

1  Besides,  Aristotle  proves  in  his  Physics,  to  which  he  refers  here,  that 
the  motions  of  the  planets  are  eternal,  and  that  eternal  motion  can  only  be 
produced  by  an  eternal  motor,  and  any  motion  whatsoever  by  a  motionless 
motor.     Saint  Thomas  Aqninas  refers  us,  for  these  proofs,  to  the  book  on 
Physics  and  the  one  on  the  Heaven. 

2  Metaph.,  xii.  8. 

8  Aristotle  here  alludes  at  first  to  the  diurnal  motion  which  seems  to  carry 
the  whole  celestial  vault  through  a  revolution  of  twenty-four  hours'  duration  : 
this  is  what  he  calls  the  simple,  primary  motion  ;  then  he  speaks  of  the 
various  movements  of  the  planets,  each  of  which  seems  to  add  a  motion  of  its 
own  to  this  general  and  primary  movement.  Aristotle  rests  too  much  here 
upon  the  postulates  of  experience  as  the  senses  have  given  them  to  him. 
Plato  also  rested  upon  the  experience  of  the  senses,  but  he  used  his  reason 
more,  was  freer  from  the  illusion  of  the  senses,  less  directly  ready  to  accept  it 
as  the  type  of  truth.  In  regard  to  the  heaven  and  the  stars,  Plato  probably 
accepted  Pythagorean  ideas,  and  distrusted  appearances.  But  Aristotle,  lim- 
iting knowledge  on  this  point  to  what  he  saw,  boldly  asserts  that  there  are 
seven  motionless,  eternal  motors,  because  there  are  seven  planets  ;  and  that 
the  eighth  sphere,  that  of  the  fixed  stars,  is  moved  by  the  immovable, 
eternal,  and  primary  motor.  Upon  which  Saint  Thomas  says  (Paris  edition, 
vol.  iv.  p.  453,  commmentary  on  book  xii.  chap.  8  of  Aristotle's  Metaphysics) 
that  in  Aristotle's  day  astronomers  had  not  yet  observed,  as  the)r  have  since, 
the  proper  movement  of  fixed  stars  ;  but  that  thence  Aristotle  in  every  case, 
in  his  system,  asserts  the  existence  of  too  few  motors. 

6 


82  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

for  every  spherical  body  is  eternal,  and  cannot  cease  to  be 
in  motion  :  we  have  proved  this  by  physics.  Each  of  these 
movements,  therefore,  must  be  produced  by  an  essence  im- 
movable in  itself  and  eternal ;  for  the  nature  of  the  stars  is 
eternal  in  its  essence.  ...  It  is  therefore  evident  that  there 
must  necessarily  be  as  many  essences,  eternal  in  their 
nature,  immovable  in  themselves,  and  indivisible."  1  This 
established,  Aristotle  again  returns  to  the  one  first  motion- 
less motor,  the  first  essence.  He  says  that  it  alone  is  im- 
material, because  it  is  all  act ;  that  nothing  of  it  is  in  a 
potential  state,  and  that  it  has  its  end  in  itself,  as  is  expressed 
by  the  Greek  word  entelechy 2  (eV,  reXo?,  e%&>z>),  and  he  con- 
cludes :  "  The  first  motionless  motor  is  therefore  a  Unity 
both  as  regards  form  and  number."3 

But  even  after  this  he  falls  back  into  his  error  concerning 
several  secondary  gods,  and  says  that  the  fabulous  mythology 
of  the  ancients  contains  this  basis  of  truth,  "That  the  stars 
are  gods,  and  that  the  divine  surrounds  all  nature  (OTI  6eoi 
re  cl&iv  ovrot  KOI  Tre/ote^et  TO  Oeiov  rrjv  o\r)v  <£uen,i>);"  and 
these  secondary  gods  are  distinguished  by  Aristotle  from  the 
sovereign  God,  in  that  he  alone  is  first,  in  that  he  alone  is 
immovable  loth  in  himself  and  accidentally,  he  alone  is  all 
act,  has  his  end  in  himself,  and  is  entelechy.  The  others 
are  not  all  act,  they  are  immovable  by  themselves,  but 
movable  accidentally.  He  alone,  again,  is  the  first  desirable 
and  the  first  intelligible,  and  the  sovereign  Good. 


VL 

God's  relations  with  the  world,  according  to  Aristotle,  are 
these :  — 

"We  must  now  consider4  how  universal  nature  includes  the 
Good,  the  sovereign  Good.     Is  it  as  a  separate  being,  existing  in 
i  Metaph.,  xii.  8.  *  Ibid.  3  Ibid.  4  Ibid<>  10. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  83 

itself,  or  rather  as  the  cosmic  order,  or  in  both  ways  at  once,  as  in 
an  army  1  For  the  good  of  an  army  is  its  order,  and  it  is  also, 
its  chief,  —  particularly  its  chief:  order  does  not  constitute  the 
leader,  it  is  the  leader  who  gives  order." 

Aristotle  admits  both,  and  shows  the  absurdities  which 
flow  from  any  other  system.  Those,  for  instance,  who  do 
not  accept  the  supreme  Good  as  a  separate  principle  existing 
by  itself,  those  who  "  derive  beings  from  non-being,  or, 
to  escape  this  necessity,  reduce  everything  to  absolute 
unity."  1 

Here  Aristotle  stigmatizes,  as  Plato  does,  the  old  absur- 
dity of  atheism  which  derives  being  from  non-being,  as  well 
as  the  old  absurdity  of  pantheism,  which  refers  everything 
to  absolute  identity.  He  thus  at  once  attacks  the  present 
German  sophists  at  both  ends,  —  those  alike  who  admit  non- 
being  and  absolute  identity,  and  who  still  fancy  that  in 
Aristotle  they  have  a  powerful  ally.  Aristotle  at  the  same 
time  refutes  those  who  admit  of  two  opposite  principles,  — 
as  these  sophists  also  do,  —  and  shows  that  they  "  are  forced 
to  give  an  opposite  to  supreme  knowledge  and  wisdom,  — 
an  excess  which  we  avoid,"  2  says  Aristotle.  "  The  first  prin- 
ciple has  no  opposite  (ov  yap  larlv  evavriov  rw  irpwrtd 
oi)6ev).  The  first  principle  is  unique.  Those  who  take  for 
their  principle  number  and  an  infinite  series  of  essences, 
each  essence  having  its  principle,  make  the  universe  a  collec- 
tion of  episodes  and  a  host  of  principles  (eVe^ro&wS?;  rrjv 
rov  Travrbs  ovcriav  iroiovcnv  .  .  .  KOI  ap^a^  TroXXa?).  But 
beings  do  not  wish  to  be  ill-governed.  Homer  says,  "A 
multiplicity  of  leaders  is  of  no  avail.  Let  one  alone 
rule  :  — 

"  OVK  dyadov  TroXvKoipavirj.     Eis  Koipavos  eoro>."  8 

Thus  closes,  with  the  twelfth  book  of  Aristotle's  Meta- 
physics, this  fine  abstract  of  a  Theodicy. 

""ORNIA.  . 


Metaph.,  xii.  10.  2  Ibid.  «  II.  ii.  204^    ' 


84  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 


VII. 

It  was  doubtless  to  his  Metaphysics  that  Aristotle  alluded, 
when,  on  Alexander's  reproaching  him  for  having  revealed 
the  sublimities  of  knowledge,  he  replied,  "  I  have  so  revealed 
them  as  not  to  reveal  them."  It  is  still  true  that  these  books, 
more  than  any  of  his  others,  earned  for  Aristotle  the  title  of 
the  Dark. 

In  his  work  on  the  World  he  is  clearer.1  After  developing 
his  ideas  in  regard  to  the  world,  he  adds,  — 

"  It  remains  for  us  to  speak  briefly  of  the  cause  which  contains 
and  governs  the  whole.  An  old  tradition,  circulated  among  all 
mankind  by  our  fathers,  tells  us  that  everything  comes  from  God 
and  through  God,  that  no  nature  suffices  unto  itself  (ovSe/xta  Se 
<f>vcris  avTTj  KaO1  eavrrjv  ecrnv  aurapKrys),  and  exists  only  by  his  help. 
.  .  .  God  is,  in  fact,  the  preserver  and  Father  of  all  that  is  in  the 
world,  and  he  acts  in  everything  that  acts,  not  as  the  workman 
who  labors  and  grows  weary,  but  as  an  omnipotent  virtue  which 
operates.  .  .  .2 

"We  must  know  of  God  that  his  might  is  irresistible,  his  beauty 
complete,  his  life  immortal,  his  virtue  supreme,  and  that,  invisible 
to  any  mortal  nature,  he  is  visible  in  his  works.  And  surely  all 
motions  and  all  beings  which  are  in  the  air,  on  the  earth,  or  in  the 
waters,  are  really  the  works  of  God,  who  contains  the  universe.  .  .  .3 

"God  is  an  immutable  law,  a  law  which  can  be  neither  changed 
nor  corrected,  a  law  holier  and  better  than  the  laws  written  on  our 
tables.  Governing  all  by  incessant  activity  and  infallible  harmony, 
he  directs  and  orders  the  entire  universe,  heaven  and  earth,  and 
diffuses  himself  throughout  all  beings.  .  .  .4 

"  He  is  One,  but  he  has  several  names,  derived  from  his  various 
modes  of  action  in  the  woild.  Does  it  not  seem  that  when  we  call 
him  both  Zena,  and  Dia  we  mean  Him  ~by  whom  we  live  ?  .  .  .5 

1  I  know  that  the  authenticity  of  this  book  is  contested.     But  there  is  a 
passion  for  disputing  the  authenticity  of  books  to  which  we  should  only  yield 
on  decisive  proof. 

2  De  Mundo,  vi.  p.  397.  4  Ibid.  p.  401. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  399.  .  6  ibid. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  85 

"All  these  names  stand  for  God  alone,  as  the  noble  Plato  re- 
marks. God  therefore,  according  to  ancient  tradition,  is  the  be- 
ginning, end,  and  middle  of  all  that  is,  and  traverses  all  nature  in 
a  straight  line  (showing  to  all  things  his  direct  course),  ever  fol- 
lowed by  justice,  the  avenger  of  those  who  transgress  upon  this 
divine  line, — justice  which  all  should  possess  who  desire  to  attain 
in  the  future  to  a  state  of  blessedness,  and  all  who  desire  to  be 
happy  in  the  present."1 

VIII. 

Certainly  all  that  precedes  is  grand  and  beautiful,  but  we 
now  come  to  a  point  where  Aristotle's  genius  seems  to  us 
amazing. 

Saint  Thomas  Aquinas2  asserts  that  Aristotle  first  called 
attention  to  the  great  distinction  between  the  two  degrees  of 
the  divine  intelligible,  which  we  have  already  encountered  in 
Plato. 

Doubtless  Aristotle  is  far  from  having  seen  the  whole  of 
this  vast  question:  that  was  impossible  in  his  day.  But 
evidently  he  saw  the  truth,  and  grasped  certain  features  of 
it  with  admirable  precision. 

In  the  first  place,  he  distinguishes  in  man,  with  perfect 
distinctness,  the  two  lights  which  Saint  Augustine  calls  light 
which  illuminates  and  the  light  which  is  illuminated,  and 
which  Fe'nelon  describes  as  the  reason  which  borrows  and  the 
reason  which  gives.  "  Everywhere  in  nature,"  says  Aristotle, 
"  we  find  the  distinction  between  that  which  is  only  in  the 
potential  state,  and  that  which,  being  already  actual,  pro- 
duces the  passage  from  potentiality  to  act.  This  distinction 
necessarily  recurs  in  the  soul.  There  is  a  passive  intellect 
capable  of  becoming  anything,  and  there  is  an  active  intellect 
capable  of  producing  everything.  The  latter  is  like  the  light. 
Light  converts  into  actual  fact  colors  which  only  exist  in 
potentiality.  So,  too,  separable  intellect  (distinct  from  man), 

1  De  Mundo,  close  of  the  book.  2  Contra  Gentes,  cap.  iii.  3. 


86  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

impassive  and  entirely  pure,  is  act  in  essence.  .  .  .  That  in- 
tellect is  Being  itself,  it  alone  is  immortal,  eternal,  and  with- 
out it  the  passive  intellect  can  do  nothing." 1 

Aristotle,  therefore,  perceived,  in  the  analysis  of  reason, 
that  fundamental  distinction  which  Fdnelon  develops  so 
finely,  between  the  reason  which  is  within  us,  and  the  reason 
which  is  God  himself. 

In  all  his  works  he  recurs  to  this.  He  everywhere  main- 
tains that  this  principle,  intelligent  and  intelligible,  pure  in- 
tellect, is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  soul,2  and  that  neither 
perception  (alaOdvecrOcu),3  memory,  nor  ordinary  thought 
(Sofa£e«>),4  nor  reasoning  (Xo7£<r/zo<?),5  nor  any  discursive  in- 
tellectual act  (Sidvoia)?  "  are  the  functions  of  contemplative 
intellect  (vovs  QewprjTiKos),7  but  rather  the  functions  of  man, 
who  gives  life  to  that  intellect." 8 

This  intellect  is  radically  distinct  from  the  soul,  it  is  a 
being  and  a  substance  apart  which  supervenes  in  man  (6  Se 
vovs  eoitcev  e<yylveo-0ai,  oixria  rt?  ovcra) ; 9  which  supervenes 
from  without  (OvpaOev) ; 10  which  is  divine  (Oelov  elvai)\ 
which  is  separable  from  the  soul  as  the  eternal  from  the 
perishable  (eVSe^erat  ^(opl^aOai,  KaOdirep  TO  dt'Siov  rov 
(f)0aprov')  ;n  which  is  in  us  as  another  kind  of  soul  (eoi/cc  tyv^s 
7eVo<?  erepov  eivai) ;  as  a  light  which  not  only  is  not  given 
to  animals,  but  which  does  not  even  seem  to  be  granted  to  all 
men  (aXX'  ovSe  rot?  dv6pu>irois  vrao-t).12  This  latter  assertion 
would  correspond  with  those  solemn  words  of  holy  Scripture  : 
"  The  sun  of  intelligence  has  not  risen  upon  them." 13 

Aristotle,  clearly,  here  refers  to  the  final  perfection  of  in- 

1  De  Anima,  iii.  5.  *  Ibid.  7  Ibid. 

2  Ibid.,  i.  2.  5  ibid.,  ii.  3.  8  Ibid.,  i.  4. 
8  Ibid.,  5.                                     6  Ibid.                             9  Ibid. 

10  De  Generat.  Amina,  ii.  3,  and  ii.  6.  n  De  Anima,  ii.  2. 

12  "Intelligence,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  understand  it,  does  not  seem  to 
exist  indifferently  in  all  animals,  or  even  in  all  men"  (De  Anima,  i.  2). 

13  Wisdom,  v.  6. 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  87 

telligence,  its  end  and  last  term,  which  Plato  calls  the  term 
of  the  intellectual  procedure,  and  Saint  Augustine,  reason 
attaining  its  end,  —  a  termination  which  consists,  accord- 
ing to  Aristotle,  in  seeing  the  intelligible  as  he  sees  him- 
self, in  seeing  him  by  touching  him  (Oiyydvcov  /cal  vowv),  and 
in  becoming  one  with  him  (ware  ravrbv  vov$  /cal  VOTJTOV)  ; 
which  Saint  Augustine  also  considers  as  the  proper  charac- 
teristic of  the  vision  of  God.  But  this  contemplation,  says 
Aristotle,  which  is  happiness,  and  which,  in  God,  is  continu- 
ous, is  only  granted  to  man  at  rare  intervals.1 

Our  mind  is  naturally  in  respect  to  this  high  degree  of 
light  as  the  eye  of  the  owl  in  respect  to  the  sun.2  God 
always  sees  this  pure  intelligible  light,  it  is  himself :  in  God 
intelligence  and  the  intelligible  are  identical.3  But  with  re- 
gard to  us,  this  divine  light  is  supernatural ;  and  the  soul,  in 
so  far  as  we  consider  it  as  illuminated  by  this  light,  is  not 
purely  natural*  This  light,  according  to  Aristotle,  does  not 
come  by  generation.  The  soul,  in  so  far  as  vegetative,  sensi- 
tive, rational,  that  is  to  say,  in  so  far  as  including  life,  ani- 
mality,  and  humanity, —  the  soul  comes  by  generation,  and 
develops  with  the  total  germ.  But  this  light  of  intelligence 
alone  comes  to  man  otherwise,  it  only  is  divine.5 

This  light  is  the  end  and  object  of  man,  and  the  sovereign 
good  consists  in  its  contemplation. 

So  thinks  and  says  Aristotle.  We  will  consider  these 
extracts  further  elsewhere.  Let  the  reader  ponder  well  the 
beautiful  words  which  follow  :  — 

"  If  it  be  true  that  happiness  is  virtue  in  act,  it  is,  above  all,  the 
act  of  the  highest  virtue ;  it  is,  above  all,  the  act  of  that  which  is 
best  in  man.  Whether  this  best  be  the  intellect,  or  any  other 
principle  which,  by  nature,  should  prevail  in  man,  and  which  pos- 

1  Metaph.,  xii.  7.  4  Part.  Anim.,  p.  641. 

2  Ibid.,  ii.  1.  5  De  Generat.  Anim.,  ii.  2. 
8  Ibid.,  xii.  7. 


88  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

sesses  in  itself  the  light  of  the  divine  and  the  good;  whether  this 
test  be  the  divine  itself,  or  that  which  is  most  divine  in  man,  in 
any  case  it  is  the  action  of  that  principle,  acting  in  harmony  with 
its  own  peculiar  virtue,  which  must  constitute  perfect  happiness. 
We  have  already  said  that  this  action  is  contemplation.  .  . .  But  such 
a  life  is  superior  to  the  life  of  man  :  it  is  not  in  that  he  is  man  that 
he  mill  live  thus,  but  in  that  a  divine  principle  lives  within  him  ; 1 
and  inasmuch  as  this  principle  differs  from  that  compound  which 
is  man,  just  so  much  will  its  action  triumph  over  the  action  of 
every  other  virtue.  If  the  intellect  be  divine  relatively  to  the 
man,  the  life  according  to  its  action  will  be  divine  relatively  to 
human  life.  Man,  therefore,  according  to  the  warning  of  the 
wise,  must  learn  to  rise  above  the  mere  human,  to  lose  all  sense 
of  anything  mortal,  and  to  live  immortally  with  the  life  of  the 
higher  principle  which  lives  within  him." 

Let  the  reader  take  heed  lest  he  forget  these  fragments 
from  Aristotle.     We  shall  make  use  of  them  again. 


IX. 

Let  us  close  this  study  of  Aristotle's  theodicy  with  two  re- 
marks, one  concerning  the  method,  and  the  other  the  result. 

As  regards  the  method,  it  is  plain  that  Aristotle  used  both 
processes  of  reasoning.  This  we  have  seen.  Nothing  else 
was  possible ;  but  Aristotle  did  not  always  realize  this  with 
sufficient  distinctness. 

Aristotle  possessed  that  profound  good  sense  peculiar  to 
the  genius  which  seeks  truth  rather  than  the  mere  means  of 
finding  it.  He  was  particularly  free  from  the  unbearable 
sophistical  madness  which  demands  absolute  proof  of  every- 
thing. "  It  is  ridiculous "  (<ye\oiov),  he  said,  "  to  pretend  to 
prove  that  nature  exists."  "  There  are  some,"  he  says  else- 
where, "who  admit  of  no  other  proofs  than  mathematical 
ones ;  others  who  only  need  to  have  examples ;  others  love  to 

1  Moral,  ad  Nicom.,  x.  7. 


ARISTOTLE'S  THEODICY.  89 

lean  upon  the  authority  of  the  poets.  There  are  some  who 
demand  that  everything  should  be  accurately  proved,  while 
others  find  such  accuracy  unendurable.  .  .  .  And  it  must  be 
confessed  that  there  is  a  certain  futility  beneath  the  pretence 
of  accuracy.  .  .  .  We  should  not  exact  mathematical  accuracy 
in  everything,  save  in  the  case  of  abstract  things." 

Thus  it  was  not  a  foregone  conclusion  with  Aristotle  to 
apply  syllogistic  deduction  to  every  question.  He  knew  and 
he  maintained  that  majors  were  not  to  be  found  in  this  way, 
but  rather  by  the  other  process,  induction  (eirayoyytj).  At 
times  he  even  calls  this  process  Dialectic,  with  Plato .  "  This," 
he  said,  "  is  the  bent  of  dialectic :  it  is  an  investigator  by 
nature,  and  searches  out  the  first  principles  in  every  branch 
of  learning."1  This  we  shall  discuss  more  fully  in  logic. 
But  we  must  confess  that  Aristotle  errs  in  not  recognizing 
the  Platonic  dialectic  as  one  of  the  two  processes  of  reason- 
ing, —  that  which  leads  to  God,  that  which  he  himself  em- 
ployed in  his  search  for  the  first  principle,  for  the  Being  all 
act,  the  eternal  and  perfect  living  one.  He  often  unwit- 
tingly veils,  disguises,  and  hinders  this  simple  and  powerful 
process,  by  the  syllogistic  form.  Hence  those  strange  majors 
which  are  the  weak  side  of  Aristotle,  the  point  at  which  mod- 
ern thinkers  attack  him.  For  instance,  "  Every  spherical  body 
is  eternal,  and  is  eternally  in  motion."  This  is  what  revolted, 
and  justly  so,  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 

But  what  we  also  affirm  is  that  these  majors  were  often 
the  fruit  of  the  profoundest  thought,  and  the  legitimate  re- 
sult of  the  process  which  reason  possesses  for  the  discovery 
of  majors.  Such  is,  for  instance,  one  which  is  fundamental 
with  Aristotle,  and  of  which  we  have  already  spoken :  "  Every- 
thing that  moves  is  moved  by  some  other  thing,  or,  rather, 
Nothing  is  self -moving!'  Who  would  imagine  that,  in  another 
form,  this  major  is  the  precise  point  from  which  Descartes 
starts  to  find  God  ?  This  we  shall  show. 

1  Top.,  i.  2. 


90  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

We  have  only  to  recall  that  movement,  with  Aristotle,  means 
the  path  from  potentiality  to  act.  Thus  Aristotle's  major 
means :  Everything  that  passes  from  potentiality  to  act,  passes 
thus  only  under  the  action  of  a  cause  already  in  act.  Now,  is 
it  not  clear  that  Descartes  sees  the  same  truth  and  translates 
Aristotle's  algebra  into  ordinary  speech,  when  he  says :  "  I 
know  that  I  am  an  imperfect,  incomplete  thing,  dependent 
upon  another,  constantly  tending  and  aspiring  towards  some- 
thing better  and  greater  than  myself ;  but  I  also  know,  at 
the  same  time,  that  he  upon  whom  I  depend,  possesses  in 
himself  all  those  great  things  to  which  I  aspire,  .  .  .  not 
indefinitely  and  only  IN  POTENTIALITY,  but  that  he  en- 
joys them  indeed  ACTUALLY  and  INFINITELY,  and  so  he 
is  God."  Descartes  therefore  saw,  like  Aristotle,  the  created 
being  passing  from  potentiality  to  act;  now,  he  could  not 
thus  pass  into  act  and  tend  towards  the  best,  save  under  the 
influence  of  a  cause  which  is  not  in  potentiality,  but  in  act : 
and  this  cause  which  is  ever  in  act  is  God.  We  see  that  this 
is  precisely  Aristotle's  major.  It  is  also  exactly  the  process 
of  Plato,  who  found  the  immutable  in  the  variable,  and  the 
infinite  in  the  finite.  And,-  in  fact,  Plato  says  the  selfsame 
things  in  the  Timaeus.  He  first  asserts  the  absolute  distinc- 
tion between  that  which  becomes  and  that  which  is  abso- 
lutely ;  that  is  to  say,  of  that  which  passes  from  potentiality 
to  act,  and  that  which  is  already  all  act.  "  Let  us  first  dis- 
tinguish the  being  which  is  always  and  which  has  not  to  be- 
come, from  the  being  which  becomes  and  never  is  entirely. 
Now,  all  that  which  becomes,  necessarily  becomes  under  the 
influence  of  a  cause.  For  it  is  impossible  for  any  being  to 
become  without  an  author."  In  other  words,  there  is  no  effect 
without  a  cause.  This  is  exactly  Aristotle's  major :  Nothing 
passes  from  potentiality  to  act,  save  through  a  cause  already 
in  act.  And  it  is  in  this  truth  that  Plato,  like  Descartes, 
sees  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God :  "  We  have  said  that 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  91 

all  which  becomes,  must  needs  have  an  author  who  is  the  cause 
of  its  becoming.  But  to  find  and  know  this  author  and  this 
father  of  all,  is  a  grand  work." l 

Here  then,  in  regard  to  this  fundamental  starting-point 
and  in  regard  to  the  process  which  leads  to  God,  we  trace 
Descartes  back  to  Plato,  and,  what  we  did  not  expect,  to 
Aristotle.  This  is  because  the  human  mind  is  one,  and  truth 
is  one.  By  God's  goodness,  man  stands  face  to  face  with 
truth,  and  the  light  shines  for  every  man  coming  into  this 
world.  All  those  who  see,  see  the  same  things,  and  all  that  a 
man  has  seen  is  true.  So  Saint  Thomas  and  Saint  Augustine 
alike  affirm.  Thus,  at  bottom,  all  geniuses  of  the  first  order 
agree ;  and  there  is  one  human  universal  philosophy,  which, 
from  this  fact,  has  been  accepted,  elevated,  consecrated  and 
crowned  by  Christian  theology.  There  are  none  to  contradict 
this  whole,  divine  and  human,  save  the  never-ending  sect  of 
error,  which,  by  a  satanic  method,  succeeds  in  breaking  away 
from  reason  and  turning  away  its  head,  that  it  may  not  see. 

Our  second  remark  in  regard  to  Aristotle's  Theodicy  relates 
to  its  result. 

It  is  clear  that  this  result  is  that  of  Plato,  that  of  all  wise 
men,  of  all  men  subject  to  common-sense  and  followers 
of  reason.  Aristotle  —  we  have  cited  all  the  texts  —  ad- 
mits of  a  God  distinct  from  the  world  and  present  in  the 
world,  all  natures  in  which  he  pervades  and  penetrates,  —  a 
living,  omnipotent  God,  the  first  cause,  efficient  cause,  final 
cause ;  motionless  motor,  only  being  wholly  in  act,  that  is  to 
say  the  only  being  perfectly  immutable,  a  perfect  and  eternal 
living  being ;  a  God  who  is  sovereign  goodness  and  supreme 
good ;  a  God  infinitely  intelligent,  since  he  is  identical  with 
the  intelligible  itself,  and  since  his  act,  his  life,  consists  in 
the  very  possession  of  that  intelligible  which  is  identical  with 
him ;  a  God  invisible  in  himself,  visible  in  his  works ;  a 

1  Timaeus,  p.  28. 


92  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

God  governing  all  by  his  action  and  by  his  Providence,  as  a 
leader  governs  an  army ;  a  just  God,  who  punishes  free  man, 
the  violator  of  his  unchanging  law,  and  rewards  by  happi- 
ness, now  and  in  the  future,  those  who  cling  fast  to  justice. 

We  see  that  this  is  Plato,  it  is  tradition,  it  is  common- 
sense,  it  is  universal  wisdom. 

Aristotle  here  fully  confirms  Plato's  saying:  "All  wise 
men  have  but  a  single  voice." 

It  is  therefore  certain,  —  let  us  repeat  it,  and  insist  upon  this 
point, —  it  is  certain  that  there  are  universal  truths  in  regard 
to  which  all  philosophers  agree,  if  by  philosophers  we  mean 
sages,  and  not  sophists.  There  is  a  universal  philosophy,  a 
natural  and  common  wisdom,  which  is  the  same  in  all  men 
amenable  to  the  light  of  reason.  All  thinkers  of  the  first 
rank  plainly  come  under  this  head.  The  sophists  are  outside 
this  guild.  They  are  the  heretics  of  reason,  the  sectarians  of 
humanity.  As  there  are  in  the  Catholic  Church  articles  of 
faith,  there  are  in  mankind  articles  of  never-ending  reason. 
And  this  universal  wisdom  is  only  denied  by  the  false  and 
vain  minds  whose  pride  prevents  them  from  obeying  the 
dictates  of  common-sense,  and  whose  intellectual  weakness 
at  the  same  time  forbids  them  from  rising  to  the  luminous 
society  of  great  minds,  —  souls  separated  who  do  not  live  by 
the  heart,  in  the  fruitful  warmth  of  the  common  sun,  and 
who  can  no  longer  attain,  in  spirit,  to  the  contemplation  of 
the  light  which  would  lead  back  their  hearts  to  the  true 
source  of  life.  These  sad  souls,  doubly  sectarian,  doubly  sep- 
arated1 from  the  universal  faith  and  the  common  reason, 
unfortunately  exist  in  vast  numbers  in  this  age.  And  the 
leaders  of  this  perversion  possess  an  audacity  which  the 
sophists  never  had,  —  they  aspire  to  a  radical  change  of  the 
human  conscience  and  the  human  mind  and  the  government 
of  the  world.  They  undertake,  and  they  avow  it,  to  alter 

1  Eradicate,  bis  mortuae  (Epist.  cath.  B.  Judse,  12). 


ARISTOTLE'S   THEODICY.  93 

universal  logic  and  the  meaning  of  human  language.  But 
they  will  not  succeed.  They  will,  on  the  contrary,  serve;  and 
we  intend,  for  our  part,  to  use  them  for  this  purpose :  they 
will  serve  clearly  to  separate  the  light  from  the  darkness,  by 
themselves  becoming  darkness,  and  to  make  the  truth  more 
apparent  by  proving  it  through  their  own  absurdity. 

If  we  divide  into  two  classes  the  men  who  have  thought 
or  pretended  to  think  ,  if  we  call  the  one  philosophers  or 
sages,  the  others  sophists,  —  Aristotle,  as  we  see,  has  nothing 
in  common  with  the  sophists  of  any  age.  He  is  a  philoso- 
pher properly  so  called,  and  one  of  the  seven  or  eight  ge- 
niuses of  the  first  order.  Let  us  again  remark  that  he  has 
nothing  in  common  with  that  kind  of  mind  now  known  as 
rationalists,  who  are  the  minds  hesitating  between  sophistry 
and  philosophy,  —  always  much  nearer  to  the  one  than  to 
the  other ;  minds  less  keen  for  results  than  for  mere  proofs  ; 
bold  and  prejudiced  minds,  which  create  for  themselves  ex- 
clusive methods,  and  reject  all  that  does  not  come  within  the 
compass  of  these  methods ;  who  abuse  individual  reason  by 
excluding  in  advance  all  which  it  has  not  built  up  in  each 
of  them  ;  who  shut  it  out  alike  from  all  faith  and  all  tradi- 
tion and  the  thought  of  other  minds,  —  alike  from  feeling, 
from  the  heart,  and  from  knowledge  of  visible  nature  ;  who, 
besides,  mutilate  reason  itself,  and  always  take  its  clear 
side  and  remove  its  warm  side,  the  source  of  all  light; 
ignoring  what  Seneca  said :  "  Reason  is  not  made  up  of 
evidence  alone ;  its  best  and  greatest  side  is  hidden  and 
obscure." 

Aristotle,  through  his  profound  good  sense,  the  precision 
of  his  results,  his  respect  for  the  thought  of  others  and  for 
healthy  antiquity,  through  his  great  knowledge  of  natural 
facts,  his  intellectual  universality,  has  nothing  in  common 
with  these  unfortunate  and  sterile  eccentrics. 

The  foregoing  is  enough,  we  hope,  to  justify  the  admira- 


94  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

tion  of  the  great  Catholic  scholars  of  the  Middle  Ages  for 
Aristotle.  Aristotle  has  too  long  been  rejected  by  Bacon, 
Descartes,  and  above  all,  by  Protestantism.  If  classical  stud- 
ies ever  revive  among  us,  Aristotle  will  resume  his  proper 
place.  That  vigorous  genius  may  yet  aid  us  to  cast  aside 
those  flabby  and  facile  habits  of  thought  which  weaken  the 
mind,  and  to  return  to  strong  certainties,  —  to  recover  that 
strength  of  reason  which  now  eludes  us,  and  with  humble 
and  firm  penetration  to  subject  this  reason  to  the  super- 
natural light  of  divine  contemplation,  so  that  we  may  "  rise 
above  man  and  his  mortal  feelings  to  live  on  a  higher 
plane  than  man,  —  the  life  of  the  superior  principle  which 
lives  within  us." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY. 

Quidquid  a  flatone  dicitur,  vivit  in  Augustino. 


TT7E  now  pass  from  the  ancients  to  the  moderns;  from 
»  •  Greek  philosophers  to  Christian  sages  regarded  as 
philosophers ;  from  Aristotle  and  Plato  to  Saint  Augustine^ 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  others.  We  shall  see  at  the 
first  glance  that  Saint  Augustine  clings  to  the  school  of 
Plato,  and  Saint  Thomas  to  that  of  Aristotle.  Neither  of 
them  tries  to  disguise  it. 

I  do  not  know  why  Christians  are  sometimes  accused 
of  abjuring  philosophy,  of  killing  reason  by  faith.  We 
shall  now  find  occasion  to  throw  some  light  on  this 
point. 

Thomassin  states  —  it  is  an  historic  fact — that  Christian 
scholars,  from  the  twelfth  to  the  seventeenth  century  exclu- 
sively, formed  themselves,  as  philosophers,  in  the  school  of 
Aristotle ;  whereas  the  Fathers  of  the  first  centuries  were 
formed  in  Plato's  school. 

This  being  an  undoubted  fact,  it  follows  that  the  Christian 
doctors  of  no  century  ever  abjured  philosophy. 

And  in  fact,  all  teach  that  philosophy  and  theology,  prop- 
erly so  called,  are  two  not  separate,  but  distinct  things,  that 
there  is  a  divine  knowledge  and  a  human  knowledge,  which 
are  wholly  distinct,  and  that  true  Christian  knowledge  lies 
in  the  union  of  the  two,  without  ever  destroying  the  one  by 
the  other.  Saint  Thomas  asserts,  and  faith  teaches  us,  "that 


96  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

in  Jesus  Christ  divine  knowledge  does  not  destroy  human 
knowledge,  but,  on  the  contrary,  renders  it  more  luminous." 
Such  is  also,  in  our  opinion,  the  relation  between  these  two 
kinds  of  knowledge. 

Human  knowledge  —  that  is,  philosophy — from  the  ortho- 
dox point  of  view,  therefore,  exists,  and  will  always  exist ; 
just  as  there  will  always  be  a  human  mind  different  from 
the  mind  of  God. 

This  is  why  Christians,  when  the  Gospel  light  illumined 
the  world,  did  not  have  to  change  the  elements  of  genuine 
philosophy  then  extant.  They  had  merely  to  accept  them, 
just  as  they  could  not  otherwise  than  admit  geometry  They 
received  Plato  and  Aristotle,  in  the  bulk  of  their  works,  as 
they  accepted  Euclid. 

Certainly  they  developed  philosophy,  and  will  develop  it 
still  farther :  they  have  purged  it  of  many  errors,  but  they 
have  never  changed  its  principles  or  its  bases.  We  shall 
invent  no  other  rules  for  syllogism  than  those  given  us  by 
Aristotle ;  and  we  shall  discover  no  other  process  of  rea- 
soning than  the  two  processes  represented  by  Aristotle  and 
Plato.  Thus  there  is  a  philosophy  properly  so  called,  dis- 
tinct from  revelation. 

The  prejudice  prevailing  among  many  men  of  the  world, 
I  know,  is  that  philosophy  does  not  exist.  This  is  an  error 
due  to  the  same  ignorance  which  leads  so  many  others  to 
believe  that  divine  revelation  does  not  exist.  There  is  a 
philosophy.  What  is  it?  we  are  asked.  We  answer  that 
it  is  the  philosophy  of  Socrates,  of  Plato,  of  Aristotle,  cf 
Saint  Augustine,  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  of  Descartes,  of 
Bossuet,  of  Leibnitz,  and  of  all  geniuses  of  the  first  order, 
without  a  single  exception. 

I  do  not  say  that  philosophy  has  yet  attained  to  its  fullest 
strength,  or  even  that  all  its  organs  are  perfectly  developed ; 
I  do  not  say  that  it  is  yet  at  every  point  fully  aware  of  its 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  97 

method ;  above  all,  I  do  not  say  that  it  has  a  very  great 
number  of  followers :  but  I  say  that  it  has  existed  in  the 
human  race  for  long  centuries  back,  and  independently  of 
Christian  revelation. 

Hear  Saint  Augustine  on  this  head.  "  As  for  what  con- 
cerns speculative  philosophy,"  he  says,  "and  moral  philo- 
sophy as  well,  there  is  no  lack  of  keen  and  clever  minds  to 
show  us  that  Aristotle  and  Plato  agree,  although  the  inat- 
tentive and  incapable  suppose  them  to  be  very  wide  apart ; 
so  that  in  my  opinion,  the  struggle  and  strife  of  thought, 
with  the  help  of  centuries,  have  at  last  produced  a  genuine 
philosophy  (una  verissimcc  philosophies  disciplina)"  Only, 
as  Saint  Augustine  instantly  adds,  this  philosophy,  even 
begotten  by  human  reason,  could  not  become  popular  save 
through  the  incarnate  Word,  —  which  is  profoundly  true. 

Saint  Augustine  believes  so  fully  that  philosophy  exists 
in  the  presence  of  revelation  that  he  goes  on  to  say :  "  And, 
to  tell  you  my  entire  thought,  know  that  whatever  may  be 
this  human  wisdom,  I  do  not  believe  I  yet  possess  it  as  an 
entirety.  I  am  now  thirty-three  years  old ;  but  that  is  no 
reason  to  despair  of  attaining  it.  I  despise  all  else, — all 
that  men  deem  advantages,  —  and  I  devote  my  life  to  seek- 
ing after  it.  ...  I  have,  on  the  one  hand,  Christ's  authority, 
from  which  nothing  shall  part  me ;  .  .  .  but  for  that  which 
the  effort  of  my  reason  can  attain,  I  am  decided  to  possess 
the  truth,  not  only  through  faith,  but  also  through  intelli- 
gence ;  and  in  this  connection  I  believe  I  find  in  Plato 
doctrines  which  agree  with  our  dogmas."  So  speaks  the 
humility  of  genius  and  sanctity. 

And  it  is  well  to  observe  that  these  texts,  according  to 
Thomassin,  who  quotes  them,  and  according  to  the  Bene- 
dictines, are  not  those  to  which  Augustine  refers  in  his 
Pietractations,  when  he  believed  that  he  had  given  too  much 
praise  to  Plato  and  the  Platonists. 

7 


98  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

These  texts,  therefore,  are  decisive.  The  saint  in  the 
school  of  Christ  reads  Plato.  And  why  ?  To  possess,  if  he 
may,  the  human  mind  in  its  entirety,  —  all  reason,  all  hu- 
man reason,  —  to  the  end  that  he  may  bring  back  to  God 
the  whole  man,  and  subject  all  to  Jesus  Christ. 


II 

Let  us  now  recall  the  way  in  which  Plato  distinguishes 
two  degrees  in  the  advance  of  the  human  mind  towards 
intelligible  light. 

There  are  in  the  world  of  intelligence  these  two  degrees,— 
vision  of  shadows,  and  vision  of  eternal  realities ;  in  other 
words,  there  is  vision  of  God  himself,  —  God,  who  is  the 
sovereign  Good,  —  and  vision  of  divine  phantoms,  shadows 
of  that  which  is.  What  are  these  divine  phantoms,  these 
eternal  shadows  of  that  which  is  eternally  ?  They  are  the 
essential  truths,  the  laws  and  axioms,  the  unchanging  rules 
OJT  definitions,  of  geometry,  logic,  and  morals.  This  is  the 
.first  degree  of  intellectual  vision  lifted  above  the  senses ; 
and  from  this  vision  of  unchanging  shadows,  the  soul  infers 
the  existence  of  a  sun  capable  of  producing  these  shadows. 
This  is  the  work  of  Platonism,  but  nothing  more.  It  has 
recognized  by  a  legitimate  process  the  existence  of  the  sun ; 
it  has  surmised  its  beauty,  its  benefits.  Has  it  seen  the 
sun  itself?  We  say,  No. 

To  see  God  !  This  is  the  business  of  Christianity.  "  No 
man  has  ever  seen  God,"  says  the  gospel.  It  is  the  incarnate 
Word  that  brings  to  man  the  possibility  of  the  vision  of 
God  himself,  —  the  direct  and  immediate  vision.  Through 
the  incarnate  Word  we  shall  cease  to  guess  at  the  sun  from 
the  shadow,  we  shall  see  the  sun  itself. 

In  our  present  state,  our  physical  eye  is  not  framed  to 
look  upon  the  visible  sun,  but  only  to  behold  the  world  in 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S   THEODICY.  99 

the  light  of  that  sun.  The  eye  is  not  made  for  the  source 
of  light,  but  only  for  the  objects  which  the  rays  from  that 
source  strike.  This  fact  is  full  of  deep  meaning.  It  is  the 
same  with  our  soul.  In  the  natural  state  of  man,  in  that 
state  with  which  we  are  familiar,  our  soul  is  incapable  of 
seeing  God  himself ;  but  it  is  made  for  the  light  which  he 
diffuses,  and  which  he  sheds  upon  that  soul  and  upon  all 
objects.  To  see  God  himself  requires  a  modification  of  hu- 
man nature,  a  conversion,  a  transformation  ;  or,  rather,  a 
new  birth,  which  man  cannot  by  his  own  efforts  attain,  and 
which  God  alone,  who  created  him,  can  give  him.  After 
this  supernatural  new  birth,  the  soul  can  and  should  see 
God.  And  its  first  look  at  God  is  faith,  —  faith,  which  is 
dim  at  first,  like  the  first  .inkling  of  a  great  light,  but  which 
becomes  clear  vision  in  proportion  to  the  growth  of  our 
soul.  "Faith,  that  attempt  at  vision,"  says  Bossuet;  "Faith, 
that  dawning  vision,"  says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas. 

This  established,  we  can  grasp  the  difference  between 
Plato  and  Saint  Augustine,  and  understand  why  we  took  as 
heading  to  this  sketch,  the  words:  "All  that  Plato  says,  lives 
in  Augustine." 

The  first  difference  between  Plato  and  Augustine  is,  that 
Augustine  is,  as  it  were,  the  type  by  which  Plato  is  judged. 
Every  one  judges  in  this  way,  —  theologians,  philosophers, 
Christians,  and  others.  We  prune  away  in  Plato,  as  acci- 
dental excrescences,  all  that  does  not  fit  this  type;  we 
praise  and  admire  all  that  reminds  us  of  it.  We  strive  to 
discover,  in  the  great  philosopher,  beams  of  that  light  which 
bathes  us  in  the  great  saint.  The  fact  is  that  the  Theodicy 
of  Christian  philosophers,  the  fruit  of  human  reason,  sus- 
tained and  directed  in  its  search  after  God  by  that  great  and 
new  divine  postulate  which  is  faith,  is  no  longer,  like  the 
ancient  Theodicy,  a  dawn  mingled  with  shadows  and  illu- 
sions, seen  by  scarce  one  or  two  men  who  watch  upon  the 
mountains ;  it  is  broad  day,  visible  to  the  whole  world. 


100  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

We  have  p'ointed  out  the  method  and  results  of  Plato's 
Theodicy.  Is  it  necessary  to  say  that  in  Saint  Augustine, 
considered  solely  as  a  philosopher,  the  results  as  to  God 
are  perfect,  exact,  absolute,  uri mixed  with  error,  doubt,  or 
hesitation  ? 

Why  ?  Because  Saint  Augustine  did,  as  a  moral  and 
intellectual  means  of  rising  to  God,  precisely  what  Plato 
directs :  he  purified  himself,  kept  himself  holy,  detached 
himself  from  earth,  wrested  from  his  soul  those  nails  to 
which  Plato  refers,  by  which  pleasure  holds  us -fast;  he 
despised  honors,  riches,  sensual  delights ;  he  turned  his  whole 
soul  to  God,  lived  in  his  love  and  contemplation :  antique 
and  simple  truths  which  the  light  of  reason  teaches  to  those 
who  think,  but  between  seeing  and  practising  which  there  is 
a  gulf.  It  is  easy  for  me  to  say  that  I  ought  to  keep  myself 
holy;  but  it  is  less  easy  to  do  it,  and  to  cross  the  gulf.  Now, 
the  gulf  was  crossed  by  Plato  and  by  Augustine.  When  we 
measure  the  progress  of  "that  universal  man"  of  whom  Pas- 
cal speaks,  the  progress  of  the  human  mind  compared  in 
these  two  brother  geniuses,  we  seem  to  see  but  a  single  man, 
—  first  in  his  early  and  poetic  youth,  then  in  the  strength  of 
maturity.  In  his  youth,  when  he  was  Plato,  he  loved  virtue 
and  truth ;  he  said  to  himself,  "  I  will  be  good,  and  I  will 
possess  knowledge ;  I  will  know  the  mysteries  of  this  beau- 
tiful world ;  I  will  become  acquainted  with  him  who  is  its 
Father  and  author  ;  "  and  he  foresaw  and  pursued  this  ideal 
in  his  rich  imagination  :  and  now,  after  cruel  struggles,  after 
a  whole  lifetime  of  labor  and  courage ;  after  many  prayers, 
tears,  and  victories ;  after  learning  by  experience  the  source  of 
strength ;  after  a  new  alliance  with  God,  with  God  no  longer 
dreamed  of  as  a  poetic  spectacle,  but  possessed  as  the  sub- 
stance of  life,  —  this  man,  at  last  triumphant,  and  upheld 
by  the  Father  in  whom  he  trusted,  this  man  knows  the  truth ; 
he  is  good,  and  carries  in  his  soul,  matured  by  the  sun  of 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  101 

God,  the  forces  and  virtues  of  the  fruits  whereof  his  youth 
bore  the  flowers. 

Such  are  Plato  and  Augustine,  if  we  compare  the  results. 

As  for  the  theory  of  the  method,  the  difference  cannot  be 
the  same.  Plato  is  particularly  interested  in  the  method, 
Augustine  in  the  results.  Nevertheless  the  general  light 
which  the  saint  possesses  in  an  incomparably  greater  degree 
than  the  Greek  philosopher,  gives  the  saint  a  much  clearer 
knowledge  of  the  soul,  and  one  especially  more  experimental ; 
whence  necessarily  result  new  and  vivid  lights  upon  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  soul  in  its  flight  towards  God. 

Thus,  Plato  affirms  that  the  mainspring  of  the  dialectic  or 
of  the  passage  of  the  soul  to  God  is  love.  Saint  Augustine, 
who  possesses  that  love  in  the  highest  degree,  knows  this  far 
better  than  Plato,  and  expresses  it  better.  Plato  speaks  of  the 
divine  sense,  or  at  least  of  that  divine  part  of  the  soul  where 
God  touches  it,  binds  it  to  himself.  Saint  Augustine  knows 
this  sense  of  God  by  experience ;  in  him  the  inner  senses  are 
all  developed;  he  knows  that  inward  touch  of  God,  those 
inward  perfumes,  those  savors  of  the  soul,  and  those  vis- 
ions, those  divine  voices  which  spoke  to  him  with  far  greater 
clearness  than  to  Socrates,  and  which  did  not  merely  bid  him 
abstain,  but  act,  as  when  he  heard  the  words,  Tolle,  legc. 

Better  than  Plato  he  knew  the  vanity  of  all  transitory 
things,  of  all  that  is  born  and  dies,  and  he  is  still  less  a  prey 
to  them,  whether  in  practice  or  in  speculation.  And  yet  he 
is  never  excessive :  he  does  not,  like  Plato,  call  them  appear- 
ances which  do  not  exist ;  he  calls  them  ffie  things  which  are 
less,  which,  compared  to  God,  do  not  exist,  which  is  the  most 
exact  and  precise  truth.  He  knows  their  use  and  their  re- 
lation to  God  better  than  Plato ;  better  than  Plato  he  knows 
how  they  proceed  from  God,  how  they  belong  to  God,  how 
we  may  see  God  in  them. 

Better  than  Plato,  he  sees  the  emptiness  of  those  eternal 


102  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

shadows,  those  divine  phantoms,  those  cold,  geometrical,  log- 
ical, or  other  truths,  which  we  recognize  in  ourselves  by  the 
light  of  God.  Better  than  he,  he  understands  that  they  are 
not  God,  but  his  shadow  seen  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul ; 
more  than  he,  he  seeks  and  longs  for  the  sun  capable  of 
casting  those  shadows. 

Another  high  advantage  of  Saint  Augustine  over  Plato, 
is  that  he  clearly  explains  that  the  fulcrum  of  the  process 
which  leads  to  God  is  not  only  the  material  world,  but  also 
and  more  especially  the  inward  world  which  is  our  soul ;  he 
is  intimately  acquainted  with  the  soul,  and  knows  better  than 
Plato  how  it  differs  from  and  how  it  resembles  God.  The 
ancients,  Plato  himself,  knew  their  souls  but  slightly,  through 
experience.  Upon  this  head,  Christians  are  incomparable ; 
the  saints  and  mystics  are  the  only  men  who  possess  true 
knowledge  of  the  soul. 

Lastly,  it  is  very  plain  that  Plato,  who,  according  to  our 
views  and  those  of  most  of  the  Fathers,  does  not  posit  ideas 
elsewhere  than  in  God,  nevertheless  failed  to  develop  this 
point  in  a  thoroughly  lucid  way,  or  to  assert  this  truth  so 
exactly  and  so  often  as  Saint  Augustine.  It  seems  as  if 
Plato,  too  clear-sighted  to  posit  his  eternal  ideas  elsewhere 
than  in  God,  dared  not  explain  that  they  are  in  God,  and 
how  they  are  there.  Augustine  is  exact  and  complete  upon 
this  head. 

Shall  we  say,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Saint  Augustine  has 
borrowed  much  from  Plato  ?  It  is  certain  that  he  did :  he 
never  denies  the  fact.  Only,  it  is  with  Saint  Augustine  in 
regard  to  Plato  as  it  is  with  Descartes  in  regard  to  Saint  Au- 
gustine. Fenelon  very  fitly  remarks  that  all  of  Descartes  may 
be  found  in  Saint  Augustine.  Undoubtedly  ;  but  Descartes, 
when  meditating,  studied  Saint  Augustine  little  or  not  at 
all:  he  studied  reason.  I  certainly  do  not  say  that  all  Saint 
Augustine  is  contained  in  Plato ;  I  say  that  Saint  Augustine, 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  103 

with  greater  knowledge  of  the  past  than  Descartes,  often  saw 
things  both  in  Plato  and  in  reason.  We  should  merely  con- 
clude from  these  coincidences  that  these  three  master  minds, 
not  to  mention  others,  saw,  each  for  himself,  the  same  light, 
and  bore  the  same  witness  to  it. 

This  settled,  we  will  first  follow,  in  Saint  Augustine  the 
method  in  action. 


III. 

Of  all  that  Plato  says  on  this  subject,  Saint  Augustine 
possesses  and  gives  us,  if  we  may  so  express  it,  the  experi- 
mental intuition.  Whatever  is  said  by  Plato,  lives  in 
Augustine. 

Now,  what  did  Plato  say  ?  Saint  Augustine  himself  sums 
it  up  as  follows :  — 

"  If  Plato  lived,  and  if  he  condescended  to  answer  my  ques- 
tions; if  he  taught  me  that  it  is  not  the  physical  eye,  but  the 
pure  mind  that  sees  truth ;  that  every  soul,  which  allies  itself  to 
truth,  becomes  happy  and  perfect ;  that  the  obstacle  to  this  good 
is  a  life  subject  to  passions,  the  vision  of  the  illusory  images  of 
the  world  of  sense,  the  source  of  so  many  errors  and  idle  opinions ; 
that  the  soul  must  be  healed  before  it  can  learn  to  see  the  un- 
changing form  of  things,  and  eternal  beauty,  always  and  at  all 
points  the  same ;  that  beauty  which  space  does  not  disperse, 
which  time  does  not  alter  in  its  motionless  unity, —  beauty  whose 
existence  is  unknown  to  men,  while  it  exists  supremely  and  all 
else  is  born  and  dies,  is  fluid  and  slips  away;  if  he  told  me  that 
all  these  things,  in  so  far  as  they  exist,  are  the  works  of  the  ever- 
lasting God,  effected  in  this  truth :  works  amidst  which  the  rational 
soul  can  alone  contemplate  the  eternity  of  God,  be  endowed  and 
imbued  by  it,  and  thus  merit  that  eternity  itself;  that  held  back 
by  all  which  becomes  and  which  passes,  wounded  by  grief  or  by 
love,  given  over  to  sensuality  and  the  gross  habits  of  this  life, 
lulled  to  sleep  by  its  images  and  its  dreams,  that  soul  heeds  not 
when  it  is  told  that  there  exists  a  Being  visible  without  the  phys- 


104  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

ical  eye,  intelligible  without  images,  and  seen  by  the  mind  alone : 
if  Plato  taught  me  these  things." l 

This  is  what  Saint  Augustine  reads  in  Plato. 

Now,  while  in  regard  to  all  these  questions  Plato  gives  an 
outline  of  truth,  Saint  Augustine  always  shows  it  to  us  in 
action ;  he  does  not  give  a  didactic  description  of  his  process, 
he'  relates  his  life.  We  see  the  living  intelligence  and  light 
in  his  ardent  soul,  and  we  cannot  but  apply  to  him  his  own 
words  when,  speaking  of  this  contemplation  of  the  light,  he 
says  :  "  These  things  have  been  foretold  in  the  proper  meas- 
ure by  those  great  and  matchless  souls  who  have  seen  them, 
—  who,  as  we  believe,  still  see  them." 

Thus  Plato  teaches  us  that  to  attain  to  the  sight  of  God, 
we  must  first  heal  our  soul,  purify  it,  free  it  from  transitory 
things ;  that  then  it  may  soar  to  the  contemplation  of  ever- 
lasting beauty,  —  that  motionless  unity  which  space  does  not 
disperse  or  time  alter.  This  implies  the  whole  theoretical 
and  practical  Theodicy.  What  will  Saint  Augustine  tell  us 
of  this  whole  ? 

In  the  first  place,  in  regard  to  the  need  for  purifying  and 
healing  the  soul,  while  Plato,  from  this  point  of  view,  re- 
bukes with  the  strongest  irony  the  gross  sensuality  of  men 
plunged  in  foul  pleasures,  Saint  Augustine  does  more  :  he 
says  little  of  the  last  degrees  of  the  impure,  —  he  looks  into 
his  own  soul,  and  sees  that  soul,  already  luminous  and  living, 
still  covered  with  wounds,  almost  dying,  exhausted,  divided, 
dispersed.  In  his  actual,  experimental  intuition  of  the  soul, 
he  sounds  it  and  penetrates  it  in  every  part ;  he  sees  in  it  all 
that  prevents  it  from  being  filled  with  God,  from  knowing 
him,  from  being  one  with  and  absorbed  in  him  ;  and  his 
words  upon  this  point  have  a  tone  of  direct  experience 
which  no  art  could  ever  imitate. 

1  De  vera  Relig.,  chap.  iii.  3. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S   THEODICY.  105 

He  sees  in  the  soul  what  he  calls  the  tumor  of  pride,  — 
a  tumor  which  puffs  it  up,  which  makes  it  empty,  forces  it 
to  a  lesser  being,  diffuses  it  abroad,  and,  as  it  were,  causes 
it  to  cast  outside  itself  its  central  life,  which  is  God  himself. 
"  The  soul,"  he  says,  "  does  not  exist  of  itself,  since  it  is 
changeable,  and  since  there  is  in  it  a  want  of  being;  the 
soul,  therefore,  is  nothing  in  itself,  but  all  of  being  which  it 
possesses  is  given  it  by  God ;  united  to  God  through  its  de- 
pendent state,  the  vital  essence  of  its  soul  and  conscience  is 
the  very  presence  of  God.  This  is  its  secret  treasure.  What, 
then,  does  it  mean  in  being  puffed  up  with  pride  ?  It  means 
to  reach  out  after  external  things,  to  make  the  interior 
empty  and  idle,  to  be  ever  less  and  less.  But  to  reach  after 
external  things  is  nothing  else  than  casting  forth  its  own 
entrails,  —  that  is  to  say,  removing  God  from  itself,  not  by 
space,  but  by  mind  and  affection."  l 

Saint  Augustine  sees  that  the  soul  becomes  inwardly  ex- 
hausted when  it  scatters  its  forces  and  wastes  them  upon 
externals  ;  that  it  forsakes  unity,  stability,  fulness  of  life ; 
that  it  sinks  into  a  state  of  dispersion,  and  into  the  flood  of 
created  beings  which  pass  away  and  flow  towards  death,  and 
which  bear  it  away  as  they  flow ;  he  sees  that  the  soul  should 
struggle  to  recover,  reascend,  and  return  to  life  and  rest: 
what  that  power  is  which  incessantly  recalls  it  and  can  heal 
it.  Saint  Augustine's  vision  of  the  soul,  and  its  false  life, 
compared  to  true  life,  is  a  translucid  intuition :  his  descrip- 
tion of  it  is  most  striking.  No  man  ever  described  as  he  has 
done  our  failings  and  our  fickleness,  our  longing  for  the  im- 
mutable and  our  need  of  healing.  Here  is  a  fine  example  of 
this  description:  — 

"  God  of  power,  comfort  us,  show  us  thy  face,  and  save  us. 
For,  be  the  object  what  it  may  which  turns  my  soul  away  from 
thee,  it  is  riveted  to  some  sorrow ;  it  may  cling  to  all  beauties 

1  De  Musica,  lib.  vi.  cap.  xii.  40. 


106  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

outside  itself,  outside  thee,  —  beauties  which  yet  cannot  exist  save 
through  thee.  These  beauties  are  born  and  die  ;  they  begin, 
they  increase,  they  grow  until  they  reach  their  highest  point ; 
that  attained,  they  wither  and  fall.  Everything  tends  downward 
again,  and  decays.  When  they  spring  up,  they  strive  to  be ; 
and  the  more  they  labor  to  be,  the  more  they  hasten  not  to  be. 
Such  is  their  limitation.  Thou  hast  given  them  these  bounds, 

0  Lord  ;  they  are  the  successive  phases  of  things  which  are  never 
complete  in  every  part  at  any  one  time  :  but  by  their  birth  and 
death  they  make  up  that  universe  of  which  they  are  the  parts. 
They  are  like  the  words  of  a  speech,  which  is  entire  and  finished 
when  each  word,  having   uttered  all   its   syllables,  retires,  that 
another  word  may  take  its  place. 

"  Let  my  soul  therefore  praise  thee  in  these  beauties,  0  God, 
Creator  of  all ;  but  let  it  never  be  fastened  unto  these  things  with 
the  glue  of  love  and  the  senses  of  the  body  !  For  they  continue 
to  pass  away,  and  cease  to  exist,  and  they  rend  my  soul  as  they 
go ;  and  as  for  my  soul,  it  would  fain  exist,  it  would  fain  linger 
with  that  which  it  loves.  But  how  can  we  linger  with  that  which 
is  not  lasting,  with  that  which  is  fugitive ;  how  can  we  follow  these 
things  with  the  senses  of  the  flesh  ;  how  can  we  ever  grasp  them  as 
a  whole  when  they  pass  away  1  The  sense  of  the  flesh  is  slow  and 
weak,  and,  in  its  turn,  it  has  limits.  It  sufficeth  unto  its  end,  but 
it  sufficeth  not  to  stay  things  running  their  course  from  their  ap- 
pointed starting-place  to  their  end,  to  grasp  at  once  the  origin  and 
consummation.  Thy  divine  Word  alone,  which  creates  them,  saith 
unto  them,  '  Depart  and  return/  Then  be  no  longer  foolish-,  0 
my  soul;  permit  not  this  tumult  to  close  the  ear  of  thine  heart. 
Hearken  :  the  Word  to  thee  also  cries,  Return  to  the  place  of  ever- 
lasting rest,  where  love  is  not  forsaken,  if  itself  forsaketh  not.  Do 

1  ever  depart  1  saith  the  Word  of  God.     Fix  thy  dwelling  in  him, 
0  my  soul !    Wearied  at  last  of  illusions,  restore  to  him  what  came 
to  thee  from  him.     Restore  to  Truth  what  Truth  hath  given  thee, 
and  thou  shalt  nevermore  lose  aught;   what  was  decayed  in  thee 
shall  bloom  again,  what  languished  shall  be  healed,  what  was  scat- 
tered and  dispersed  shall  be  reformed  and  renewed.     Things  shall 
no  longer  bear  thee  away  in  their  course,  hut  shall  stand  fast  with 
thee  in  the  steadfast  and  abiding  God."1 

1  Confess.,  lib.  iv.  cap.  x.  15. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  107 

Here  we  have  direct  intuition  to  a  degree  never  possessed 
by  Plato.  It  is  thus  that  Saint  Augustine  saw  the  soul,  its 
wounds,  its  stigmas,  its  dispersedness,  its  illusions,  its  vain  and 
painful  struggle  to  seize  and  fix  that  which  is  fugitive,  its  mis- 
taken and  impotent  sensualities,  its  raptures  over  that  which 
vanishes;  and  yet  in  the  midst,  God,  ever  motionless  and  pres* 
ent,  who  recalls  it,  who  receives  it,  who  heals  it,  who  restores 
all  to  it.  It  is  thus  that  Saint  Augustine  sees  arid  touches 
both  the  soul  which  would  fain  be  purified,  and  the  power 
that  purifies  it.  We  feel  that  all  this  lives  within  him. 

And  if,  again,  he  speaks  of  the  efforts  of  the  purified  soul 
to  attain  to  the  sight  of  God,  it  is  still  his  own  life  that  he 
relates :  — 

"  I  sought  and  I  longed  to  know  by  what  model  we  should 
judge  the  beauty  of  bodies,  terrestrial  or  celestial;  by  what  light 
we  should  judge  this  changing  world,  and  say,  This  should  be 
thus,  but  that  not  ;  and  I  found,  above  my  soul  and  my 
thoughts,  themselves  variable,  an  unchanging  light  and  an  eter- 
nal truth.  I  ascended  from  my  senses  to  the  soul  which  per- 
ceives through  them;  I  went  to  that  inward  power  to  which  the 
senses  refer  things  external,  that  point  to  which  the  faculties  of 
animals  reach.  I  went  still  farther,  and  I  came  to  reason,  the  judge 
of  what  the  senses  give  us.  But  my  reason,  seeing  itself,  beheld 
itself  variable,  and  seeing  this,  rose  above  itself  and  understood 
itself;  then,  leaving  behind  it  the  torpor  of  habit  and  bewildering 
phantasms,  to  find  the  light  by  which  it  was  illumined,  it  cried 
out  without  hesitation  that  the  unchangeable  was  superior  to  the 
changeable;  and  this  itself  was  the  beginning  of  knowledge  of  the 
unchangeable.  For  if  it  had  not  known  it,  how  should  it  have 
preferred  it  to  the  changing  world;  how  could  it  have  left  visible 
certainties  to  attain  the  Being  one  of  whose  raj's  we  cannot  see 
without  trembling  ?  Thus  I  understood  and  saw  invisible  things 
through  the  things  which  God  made;  but  I  could  not  fix  my  gaze 
thereon,  and  falling  back  upon  my  own  weakness,  restored  to  habit, 
I  retained  of  this  momentary  intercourse  only  a  loving  memory,  a 
regretful  longing  for  the  odors  of  the  celestial  food."  * 
1  Confess.,  lib.  vii.  cap.  xvii.  23. 


108  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

When  Plato  says  serenely,  "  The  wise  man  considers  the 
eternal  light,"  he  says  well ;  he  knows  that  which  should  be. 
But  when  Saint  Augustine  speaks  of  that  ray  and  the  dark- 
ness which  followed  it,  and  of  that  living  memory,  and  of 
the  trace  of  those  perfumes,  it  is  evident  that  he  is  telling  us 
what  has  happened,  and  that  he  is  recounting  to  us  his  own 
life. 

Yes,  this  indeed  is  the  life,  the  deep  and  actual  life  of  a 
soul  that  seeks  God  and  rises  to  God,  which  feels  him,  which 
has  seen  him. 

We  must  repeat  it:  what  Plato  hopes  and  conjectures,  Saint 
Augustine  possesses  and  sees.  What  falls  from  the  sublime 

O  JT 

lips  of  the  philosopher,  exists  and  lives  in  the  soul  of  the 
saint,  and  bursts  forth  from  his  heart  and  his  mouth,  more 
divine  than  that  of  Plato,  with  intonations,  radiance,  and 
ardors' which  the  real  presence  of  God  alone  can  give. 

IV. 

We  have  now  seen  the  method  as  a  whole  in  action.  Let 
us  look  more  in  detail  at  the  theory  of  the  method,  according 
to  Saint  Augustine. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  all  readers  will  understand 
Saint  Augustine  either  in  what  follows  or  what  precedes. 
No  one  who  does  not  live  his  life  and  undergo  the  same  ex- 
periences can  understand  his  narratives  and  his  descriptions 
of  life.  "  Give  me,"  he  says  somewhere,  "  a  man  who  loves, 
and  he  will  understand  me."  So  that,  unless  you  love  as  he 
did,  you  cannot  understand  him. 

Highly  cultivated  literary  minds  can  but  admire  him; 
they  see  that  his  style  is  always  vivid  and  full  of  life ;  they 
therefore  see  that  it  possesses  the  characteristic  of  beauty. 
But  they  do  not  sufficiently  comprehend  that  this  beauty  is 
only  the  splendor  of  truth,  and  they  do  not  perceive  the 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  109 

strictly  philosophic  basis  of  those  beauties.  As  almost  no 
one  knows  the  chief  process  of  reason,  that  by  which  the 
creature  mounts  to  God,  which  is  at  once  poetic  and  logical, 
they  do  not  see  the  logical  thread  in  all  this  sacred  poetry,  or 
the  stern  reason  beneath  the  raptures  and  the  prayers  of  the 
saintly  soul.  This  we  must  now  make  clear  by  showing  that 
his  sublime  spirit  was  fully  conscious  of  its  acts,  philosophi- 
cally familiar  with  their  nature,  their  range,  and  their  abso- 
lute certainty. 

The  chief  difficulty  in  this  explanation  and  this  analysis 
is  the  abundance  of  noble  passages,  among  which  the  mind 
hesitates.  We  will  select,  combining  and  supplementing 
them  one  with  the  other,  two  or  three  connected  passages, 
in  which  Saint  Augustine  states  theoretically  the  progress 
of  the  mind  towards  God,  as  Plato  tells  the  story  of  the 
captives  in  the  cave,  who  leave  false  lights  behind  them  to 
gain  the  sun  of  the  true  world. 

After  an  ardent  invocation  to  God,  the  Father  of  awaking 
and  light  (pater  emgilationis  et  illuminationis  nostrce),  and 
before  describing  the  process  of  reason  which  rises  to  God,  he 
speaks  of  reason  itself,  and  says,  — 

"  My  reason  is  a  movement  of  my  soul,  a  power  which  distin- 
guishes and  unites  to  know  ;  it  is  a  guide  which  but  too  few  of 
us  use  to  lead  us  to  God,  or  even  to  the  soul  which  is  within  us ; 
.  .  .  and  this  becanse,  too  deeply  plunged  in  the  details  of  sen- 
sible phenomena,  it  is  hard  for  us  to  return  into  ourselves.  We 
only  apply  our  reason  to  illusory  accidents ;  we  can  neither  know 
it  in  itself,  or  in  its  laws."  * 

"Thus,  the  soul  is  diffused  over  that  which  is  mortal: 
this  is  the  fall;  to  reascend  is  to  bring  reason  back  to  it- 
self." 2  Saint  Augustine  then  describes  the  same  progress  of 
reason  which  Plato  calls  dialectic,  and  to  which  he  also  gives 
that  name.3  This  progress  does  not  consist  in  ceasing  to  see 

i  De  Ordine,  lib.  ii.  c.  xi.  30.  2  Ibid.,  n.  31.  8  Ibid.,  xiii.  38. 


110  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

this  visible  world,  in  suppressing  it  in  thought ;  we  should, 
on  the  contrary,  first  seek  the  traces  of  reason  in  the  world 
of  sense.1  We  must  learn  to  distinguish,  in  all  that  material 
substances  show  us,  the  visible  and  the  intelligible,  the  sign 
and  the  significance.2 

When  reason  can  distinguish  the  sign  from  the  significance 
in  sensation,  "  when  it  has  developed  itself  through  language, 
it  takes  itself  as  object,  and,  being  itself  reflected,  it  produces 
the  knowledge  of  knowledges,  which  we  call  dialectic.  It  is 
this  knowledge  which  teaches  us  to  teach,  and  which  teaches 
us  to  learn ;  in  it  reason  shows  itself  and  declares  what  it  is, 
what  it  can,  and  what  it  desires,  to  do.  It  is  a  knowledge 
which  knows  itself,  which  can  and  will  give  knowledge."  3 

"But  reason  desires  to  rise  higher  yet,  and  to  pass  from 
study  of  itself  to  contemplation  of  divine  things !  There, 
that  it  may  not  fall  into  a  vacuum,  it  seeks  steps,  and  makes 
itself  a  regular  road  through  its  previous  acquisitions.  It 
desires  to  see  that  beauty  which  alone,  and  by  a  mere  glance, 
it  can  attain  without  the  physical  eye.  But  the  senses  hold 
it  back.  What  does  it  do  ?  It  half  turns  its  gaze  towards 
those  same  sensible  objects  which,  crying  to  us  that  they  are 
the  truth,  importune  us  with  their  tumult  when  we  would 
fain  rise  higher."  4 

Saint  Augustine  holds  this  to  be  an  important  point  in  the 
theory  of  the  method ;  to  him  the  visible  world  is  a  step,  a 
point  of  support,  by  which  to  rise  higher.  He  often  recurs 
to  this  elsewhere:  "I  will  mount  higher  than  this  very 
power  which  is  in  me,  and  will  regard  it  as  a  step  to  rise  to 
him  who  made  me." 5  "  Let  us  see  how  far  reason  can  go 
in  its  ascent  from  the  visible  to  the  invisible,  from  the  transi- 
tory to  the  eternal.  I  will  not  gaze  in  vain  at  all  the  beauty 
of  the  sky,  the  regular  course  of  the  stars.  ...  I  will  not  gaze 

i  De  (Mine,  lib.  ii.  c.  xi.  33.  2  Ibid.,  34.  3  Ibid.,  xiii.  38. 

4  Ibid.,  xiv.  n.  39.  e  Confess.,  lib.  x.  cap.  viii.  12. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S   THEODICY.  Ill 

at  them  in  idle  curiosity,  but  will  make  use  of  them  as  steps 
to  raise  myself  to  the  immutable  and  immortal." l 

The  way  to  rise  to  God,  therefore,  does  not  consist  in  de- 
stroying in  one's  self  the  images  of  this  world,  but  rather  in 
making  of  them  steps  (gradus  ad  immortalia  faciendus) ; 
we  should  not  consider  them  exclusively,  we  should  consider 
them  soberly  (in  eos  ipsos  paululum  aciem  torsit}.  We 
should  consider  them  sufficiently  to  compare  them,  but  not 
so  much  as  to  lose  sight  of  the  other  term  of  the  comparison. 
This  feature  of  the  method  distinguishes  healthy  philosophy 
from  the  mystic  sophism  which  destroys  images. 

"  But  in  its  marvellous  power  of  discernment,  reason  in- 
stantly understands  all  the  difference  that  lies  between  a 
sensation  itself  and  that  which  it  signifies."2  It  speedily 
recognizes  that  it  is  their  laws  which  constitute  the  order, 
value,  light,  and  beauty  of  phenomena.  But  what  are  these 
laws? 

What  are  laws?  Modern  science  knows.  Saint  Augus- 
tine divined :  these  laws  are  geometrical  forms,  —  numbers. 
"  Reason,"  he  says,  "  having  reached  this  point,  understands 
that  it  is  numbers  that  rule  all  the  visible  world."  (Intel- 
ligebat  regnare  numeros.)  3 

And  what  are  these  forms  and  these  numbers  themselves  ? 
They  are  eternal,  consequently  divine,  truths  (reperiebat 
divinos  et  sempiternos) ; 4  they  are  ideas  perceived  by  reason. 
Now,  what  reason  sees  always  exists,  and  is  immortal ;  such 
are  numbers  (Illud  quod  mens  videt  semper  est  prcesens  et 
immortale  approbatur  ;  cujus  generis  numeri  apparebant)? 
Eeason  here  makes  an  essential  distinction  between  the 
numbers  and  the  geometrical  figures  which  the  intelligence 
includes,  and  those  shown  to  it  by  the  eyes.  Hence  it 

1  De  ver.  Relig.,  xxix.  52.  *  Ibid.,  41. 

2  De  Ordine,  lib.  ii.  cap.  xiv.  39.  6  Ibid.,  lib.  iii.  cap.  xiv.  41. 

3  I  hid. 


112  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

creates  geometry ;  it  applies  geometry  to  the  forms  and 
movements  of  the  stars  ;  it  creates  astronomy,  —  astronomy, 
that  grand  and  potent  spectacle  for  religious  souls,  that  pain- 
ful labor  for  curious  minds  (magnum  religiosis  argumentum, 
torrnentumque  curiosis). * 

Thus  reason  sees  perfectly  that  these  forms  and  these  geo- 
metric laws,  such  as  it  conceives  them  in  itself,  are  abso- 
lutely true ;  but  it  recognizes  at  the  same  time  that  it 
perceives  in  things  only  the  shadow  and  vestige  of  truth.2 

To  bear  within  one's  self  eternal  ideas  of  which  all  this 
visible  world  possesses  merely  the  shadows,  —  what  a  mar- 
vel is  this !  There  is,  then,  within  us  something  eternal ; 
my  mind,  then,  is  immortal !  Here  then,  at  least,  I  am  very 
close  to  what  I  sought.  My  reason,  in  which  I  perceived 
these  divine  and  eternal  numbers,  must  itself  be  the  same  as 
that  which  I  see  in  it.  Must  it  not  itself  be  that  primi- 
tive number  which  reckons  the  others  ?  Whether  it  be  so  or 
not,  it  is  at  least  certain  that  it  possesses  in  itself  the  object 
of  its  search  (aut  si  id  non  esset,  ibi  tamen  eum  esse  quo  per- 
venire  satageret).  It  therefore  grasps  at  last  that  Proteus 
who  shall  reveal  to  it  the  truth  ;  it  grasps  him  in  its  hands, 
and  it  holds  him  with  all  its  might.3 

It  is  this  primitive  number  which  counts  all  the  rest ; 
this  single  number  which  we  must  capture  and  never  again 
let  it  escape  us.4  For  we  must  know  what  unity  is,  and  of 
what  it  is  capable.  Add  to  this  the  dialectic,  and  we  shall 
quickly  pass  from  the  mathematic  and  abstract  unity  of  sen- 
sible postulates  to  the  sovereign  unity  which  exists  in  the  uni- 
verse. We  pass  from  these  abstract  sciences  to  Philosophy, 
and  there  too  we  find  nought  save  unity;  but  a  different 
unity,  deep  and  divine  in  a  far  different  way ;  and  we  learn  at 
last  to  distinguish  the  two  worlds,  and  the  Father  of  both. 

1  De  Ordine,  lib.  iii.  cap.  xiv.  41.  8  Ibul.  43. 

2  Ibid.  xv.  42.  4  Ibid. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  113 


V. 

Let  us  explain  all  this  still  further. 

The  soul  which  seeks  wisdom,  having  reached  that  point, 
after  first  examining  and  observing  itself,  arid  having  recog- 
nized that  reason  is  itself,  or  is  its  own  (aut  seipsum  aut 
suam  esse  rationem),  that  the  numbers  of  reason  are  its 
beauty  and  its  power,  and  that  reason  is  itself  number, —  the 
soul  goes  on  and  says  :  "  By  this  movement  and  this  inward 
and  secret  power  which  is  called  reason,  I  distinguish  and 
reunite  in  order  to  know.  But  why  distinguish  ?  To  judge 
of  that  which  seems  one,  and  yet  is  not,  —  or  at  least,  that 
which  is  less  of  a  unit  than  it  seems.  And  why  reunite,  save 
to  recompose  unity  ?  Thus,  whether  I  divide  or  reunite,  it 
is  unity  which  I  love  and  desire.  When  I  divide,  it  is  that 
I  may  have  pure  unity  ;  and  when  I  reunite,  it  is  to  have 
it  total."1 

Everything  tends  towards  unity,  —  my  reason,  all  nature, 
society,  love,  and  friendship.2 

What,  then,  is  this  unity  ?  What  I  seek,  what  I  desire 
to  know,  is  God.  Can  this  logical,  mathematical  unity,  the 
laws,  forms,  numbers,  absolute,  essential,  eternal  verities 
that  follow  from  it,  be  God?  They  give  me  a  perfect 
assurance :  then  must  not  knowledge  of  them  be  knowl- 
edge of  God  ? 3 

Let  us  now  refer  to  Plato.  These  truths,  he  says,  are  not 
God  himself,  nor  the  end  of  the  process  of  reason  (re'Xo?  rr;? 
Tropeia^,  but  they  are  divine  phantoms,  shadows  of  that 
which  is  (<f>avTd<r/jLaTa  Oela  /cal  <ncias  rwv  OVTCOV). 

No,  says  Saint  Augustine,  this  order  of  truths  is  neither 
God  nor  knowledge  of  God ;  "  If  they  were  knowledge  of 

1  De  Ordine,  lib.  iii.  cap.  xv.  48.  8  Soliloq.,  lib.  i.  cap.  v.  11. 

2  Ibid. 


114  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

God,  in  knowing  them  I  should  have  the  same  rapture  that  I 
should  have  in  seeing  God.1  I  am  forced  to  confess  that  there 
is  all  the  difference  of  the  heaven  from  the  earth  between 
the  intelligible  majesty  of  God  and  the  images  otherwise  true 
and  certain,  which  such  knowledge  gives  us."  2 

And  in  fact,  "  God  is  intelligible ;  these  logical  spectacles 
are  also  intelligible :  but  what  a  difference ! 3  The  earth 
also  is  visible,  even  as  light  is  visible;  but  the  earth,  if 
there  were  no  light,  could  not  be  seen.  Just  as  all  these 
scientific  truths,  which  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  understand 
them  are  absolutely  certain,  are  only  intelligible  because 
they  too  are  illumined  by  another  sun  which  .is  theirs." 

This  is  an  important  point,  and  it  is  clear.  We  have  here 
the  fundamental  distinction  between  the  two  degrees  of  the 
intelligible  world,  —  a  distinction  which  many  modern  think- 
ers do  not  suspect,  and  whose  absence  casts  them  into  the 
strangest  embarrassment. 

"  Now,"  adds  Saint  Augustine,  "  reason,  which  cries  aloud 
within  thee,  promises  to  show  God  to  thy  mind  as  the 
sun  shows  itself  to  thine  eyes.  Our  mind  also  has  eyes, 
and  our  soul  has  senses:  and  all  assured  truths  may  be 
compared  to  earthly  objects  upon  which  the  sun  shines 
and  makes  them  visible,  by  shedding  its  light  upon  them  : 
but  here,  the  sun  is  God:  and  I,  reason,  am  to  the  mind 
what  sight  itself  is  to  the  eyes."4 

Let  us  stop  a  moment,  and  note  that  thus  far  the  theory 
of  the  method  of  the  progress  of  reason  ascending  to  -God 
is  the  same  in  Plato  and  in  Saint  Augustine.  It  is  scarcely 
possible  that  there  are  no  direct  reminiscences  of  Plato  here ; 
and  yet  it  is  evident  that  Saint  Augustine  is  profoundly 
original  elsewhere ;  it  is  the  same  truth,  seen  and  described 
by  two  minds  of  the  first  order,  the  second  of  which  was 

1  Soliloq.,  lib.  i.  cap.  v.  1.  8  Ibid.,  viii.  15. 

2  Ibid.  4  Ibid.,  vi.  12. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  115 

necessarily  familiar  with  the  first.  But  they  are  really  two 
witnesses  in  favor  of  the  true  method. 

Only,  we  think  we  may  assert  that  Saint  Augustine  is 
more  exact  and  more  precise  than  Plato.  Plato  is  sometimes 
vague  in  his  description  of  the  starting-point  of  dialectic 
reason.  What  he  calls  the  starting-point  (i/7ro0eo-i?),  or  the 
fulcrum  of  thought  (fc7r£/3acre£9  ical  op/Acts),  by  which  it  rises 
to  the  principle  which  the  starting-point  does  not  include 
(eV  dpxvv  avvir66erov  e£  vTroOecrecos  lovcra),  is  not  always 
clearly  the  visible  world  to  him.  Neither  do  we  see  that  it 
is  the  soul  itself.  Often,  on  the  contrary,  he  seems  to  give 
us  to  understand,  he  even  states,  that  we  should  solely  and 
simply  turn  away  from  the  earth  to  gaze  only  at  the  sun. 
Saint  Augustine,  on  the  contrary,  is  entirely  explicit  and 
exact  in  regard  to  this ;  he  says  that  reason,  wishing  to  attain 
to  the  contemplation  of  divine  things,  should,  lest  it  fall  into 
a  void  (ne  de  alto  caderef),  have  points  of  support,  stepping- 
stones  (qucesivit  gradus),  an  assured  way  through  its  pre- 
vious acquisitions.  And  he  declares  that  these  points  of 
support  are  given  us  by  our  sight  of  the  world ;  and  what 
no  one  of  whom  I  know,  but  Saint  Augustine,  has  said  fitly, 
he  asserts  that  we  should  consider  them  soberly,  with  a  free 
and  impartial  eye  (aciem  parce  detorsif),  so  that  we  do  not 
linger  over  them,  or  see  them  only,  but  compare  them  with 
the  world  after  which  they  are  patterned :  that  we  may  grasp 
both  their  likeness  and  their  difference  in  regard  to  the  di- 
vine world,  of  which  the  visible  world  is  the  image. 

It  is  the  very  uncertainty  of  the  Platonic  method  upon 
this  subject,  which  permits  Aristotle  to  attack  it  as  leading 
to  nothing  real,  and  proceeding  only  to  abstractions,  to  the 
abstract  unity  of  empty  being,  while  our  metaphysics,  says 
Aristotle,  that  is  to  say,  our  method,  which  starts  from  ma- 
terial things  to  raise  us  to  that  which  is  above,  gives  us,  out- 
side and  above  nature,  a  real  essence,  neither  abstract  nor 


116  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

empty.  In  our  opinion,  Aristotle  errs  in  condemning  Plato 
here ;  but  it  is  true  that  Plato  was  not  sufficiently  explicit 
on  this  head.  Saint  Augustine  explains  it. 

But  this  is  just  where  Saint  Augustine  was  incomparably 
superior  to  Plato  in  analysis,  precision,  philosophic  and  sci- 
entific development.  It  is  a  question  of  what  Plato  calls  the 
divine  in  the  soul,  the  familiar  spirit  which  God  gives  to  each 
of  us,  and  which  is  the  mainspring  of  the  dialectic  process. 

We  shall  understand  this  superiority  as  we  go  on  with  the 
guide-book  of  reason  given  us  by  Saint  Augustine. 

VI. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  reason,  starting  with  the  visible 
world,  has  reached  that  degree  of  the  intelligible  world  where 
we  find  the  geometric,  logical,  essential,  absolute,  eternal 
truths,  which  are  not  God,  but  which  are  intelligible  only 
through  his  light.  Eeason  understands  it,  understands  that 
these  divine  phantoms,  these  eternal  shadows,  are  the  shadow 
of  the  divine  sun :  it  longs  to  see  this  sun. 

Now,  what,  in  Plato's  opinion,  urges  reason  to  seek  this 
sun  ?  It  is  the  divine  within  us,  it  is  that  divine  spirit,  that 
divine  part  of  our  soul,  that  point  and  very  root  of  the  soul 
(pi&v),  where  God  touches  and  holds  us  fast  to  him,  —  a  sa- 
cred gift  which  some  exercise  and  develop,  and  which  leads 
them  to  the  contemplation  of  God,  but  which  others  stifle  by 
the  lusts  of  the  flesh  and  by  pride. 

Saint  Augustine  says  the  same  things,  but  with  what 
wealth  and  with  what  clear-sighted  precision ! 

To  him  there  is  God,  there  is  the  soul.  God  is  in  the  soul, 
the  soul  feels  him. 

Such  is  the  pure  and  simple  truth  which  explains  everything. 

Saint  Augustine  sees  not  only,  like  Plato,  the  soul  joined  to 
God  ly  its  root,  he  sees  a  yet  more  intimate  relation  be- 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  117 

tween  God  and  the  soul.  God  is  at  the  centre  of  the  heart 
(intimus  cordi) ;  he  is  the  secret  good  of  the  soul  (hoc  bonum 
habet  intimum)\l  God  gives  it  life  as  if  he  were  its  vital 
essence  (ipsius  Dei  prcesentia  veyetatur).2  The  rational  soul 
only  lives,  is  enlightened  and  happy  only  through  the  very 
substance  of  God  (animam  humanam  et  mentem  rationalem 
vegetari,  non  beatificari,  non  illuminari,  nisi  ab  ipsa  substan- 
tia  Dei)?  The  soul  should  be  perpetually  moulded  and  per- 
fected by  him,  attaching  itself  to  him  (semper  ab  illo  fieri 
semper  que  per  fid  debemus  inhcerentes  ei)*  For  the  soul  to 
withdraw  from  God,  is  like  casting  forth  one's  very  entrails 
(intima  projicere  id  est  longe  a  se  facere  Deum) ; 6  it  is  to 
become  empty  and  vain,  and  to  be  less  and  less  (inanescere 
minus  minusque  esse).Q 

Such  is  the  secret  and  necessary  contact  of  God  with  the 
soul.  But  is  our  soul  conscious  of  it  ?  Does  it  feel  and  see 
it  ?  In  other  words,  has  it  the  divine  sense  ?  Yes ;  although 
withdrawn  from  God  by  the  affections,  it  still  feels  the  charm 
of  the  supreme  Good,  by  some  hidden  remembrance  (per 
quamdam  occultam  memoriam  quce  in  longinqua  progressam 
non  deseruit);7  there  is  also  a  secret  trace  of  the  supreme 
unity  which  exists  within  us  and  disturbs  us  (vestigium  secre- 
tissimce  unitatis,  ex  qua  eram,  curce  habebam).8  Although 
exiled,  we  are  not  cut  off  from  the  unchangeable  source  (nee 
tamen  inde  prcecisi  atque  abrupti  sumus).g  This  is  why,  al- 
though in  the  midst  of  time,  we  do  not  cease  to  seek  eternity 
(ut  non  etiam  in  istis  mutabilibus  et  temporalibus  ceternita- 
tern  qucereremus).10  Whence,  unless  we  depended  on  heaven, 
we  should  not  here  seek  these  things  (unde  nisi  penderemus 
Jiic  ea  non  qucereremus).11  All  seek  here  below :  all  therefore 

1  De  Musica,  lib.  vi.  cap.  xiii.  40.  6  Ibid. 

2  Ibid.  7  De  Trinit,  x.  iii.  315. 

3  In  Joan.  Tract.,  xxiii.  5.  8  Confess.,  lib.  i.  cap.  xx.  31. 

4  Ibid.  9  De  Trinit.,  iv.  i.  2. 

5  De  Musica,  lib.  vi.  cap.  xii.  40.  »  Ibid.  u  Ibid. 


118  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

have  this  sort  of  knowledge  and  of  reminiscence  of  God  (nee 
amarent  nisi  esset  aliqua  notitia  ejus  in  memoria  eorum).1 
It  is  a  sort  of  idea  of  the  Supreme  God  through  impression 
(impressa  notio  ipsius  Boni] ; 2  it  is  a  sort  of  inner  sense  (in- 
terior nescio  quoe  conscientia)? 

The  soul  exists,  because  God  exists,  has  created  it,  preserves 
and  sustains  it.  Because  God  touches  the  soul  and  the 
soul  feels  it,  by  this  very  thing  the  soul  lives,  it  knows,  and 
it  desires,  and  it,  is  perpetually  disturbed  by  the  attraction 
of  the  sovereign  Good  and  sovereign  Truth.  It  bears  with- 
in it  absolute  Being, — Truth  itself,  Good  itself;  and  it 
necessarily  feels  something  of  this.  This  is  what  Plato  calls 
reminiscence.  Saint  Augustine  also  uses  this  word,  but 
understands  it  differently ;  to  him  this  memory  of  God  is  a 
sort  of  consciousness  of  God,  a  sense  of  God,  which  comes 
from  the  presence  of  God.  Saint  Augustine  thus  unveils  the 
mpst  sublime  of  truths,  which  even  Plato  dared  not  believe, 
because  it  was  as  yet  too  great  for  his  sublime  mind. 

The  soul,  therefore,  feels  God.  It  feels  him  when  any 
object  whatsoever  arouses  it.  For,  everything  being  an 
image  of  God,  everything  arouses  some  sense  of  the  model. 
But  this  awakened  sense  instantly  shows  us  wherein  every- 
thing lacks,  wherein  it  resembles,  wherein  it  differs ;  and  the 
soul  judges  of  the  infinite  difference  between  the  imperfect 
and  variable  image  and  the  immutable  perfection  of  the 
model.  It  judges  created  beings,  "seeing  in  all  visible 
beauty  wherein  it  copies  from  God,  and  wherein  it  cannot 
copy  him."  4 

At  least,  such  is  the  duty  and  the  power  of  the  soul. 
Now,  in  reality,  what  does  it  do  ?  Do  we  all  see  God  in  his 
creatures  ?  Assuredly  not ;  but  why  not  ? 

"  Why  does  not  this  visible  beauty  speak  alike  to  all  ? " 5 

1  Confess.,  x.  22.  *  De  vera  Relig.,  xxxii.  40. 

2  De  Trinit.,  vii.  6  ibid.,  xxxiv.  64. 
8  Lib.  de  util.  cred.,  cap.  xvi. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  119 

"  Animals  see  it,  but  they  cannot  question  it,  because  they 
have  no  judgment  :  with  them  reason  is  not  the  judge  of  the 


senses." 


"  But  men  can  question  it,  to  the  end  that  they  may  see 
and  understand  the  invisible  God  through  his  visible  work. 
Instead  of  that,  they  are  made  subject  to  this  world  through 
love  of  it;  and  having  subjected  themselves,  they  can  no 
longer  question  it.  The  world,  answers  only  those  who 
judge  it.  It  is  understood  only  by  those  who  compare  its 
voice,  received  from  without,  with  the  truth  which  they  bear 
within  them."  Such  are  the  purified  souls,  which,  never 
having  yielded  to  the  visible  world  through  love,  regard  it 
with  an  impartial  eye,  master  it,  and  judge  it. 

These  souls,  thus  taking  the  earth  as  their  footstool,  rise 
higher:  again  becoming  free,  they  reascend  to  themselves, 
they  return  towards  reason  (regressus  in  rationem}.  Re- 
stored to  themselves,  and  free  from  the  abuses  of  the  out- 
ward senses,  they  recover  the  inward  sense,  the  divine  sense 
(sensus  animce)  ;  they  recognize  their  own  imperfection  and 
variability  more  and  more  distinctly  as  the  divine  sense 
grows  in  vigor.  Without  yet  knowing  God,  they  fully 
understand  that  they  perceive  nothing,  either  world  or  soul, 
which  can  be  compared  to  him  (qui  nondum  Deum  nosti, 
unde  nosti  niliil  te  nosse  Deo  simile).2 

Repossessed  of  its  reason,  the  soul  is  not  slow  to  judge 
that  the  light  which  illumines  that  reason,  and  in  which  it 
sees  all  that  is  within  it,  is  not  itself  (spectamina  ilia  non 
posse  intelligi,  nisi  ab  alio  quasi  suo  sole  illustrentur). 

The  soul  therefore  seeks  the  source  of  that  light  in  which 
it  sees  all  these  shadows.  But  here  Plato  and  all  philosophy 
stop.  Those  of  Plato's  followers  who,  on  reaching  this  point, 
desire  to  go  farther  through  philosophy,  and  to  contem- 
plate the  source  itself  of  light,  —  these,  according  to  Saint 

1  Confess.,  i.  295.  2  Soliloq.,  lib.  i.  cap.  ii.  7. 


120  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

Augustine,  have  taken  the  wrong  road ;  they  are  following 
a  path  which  looks  true,  but  is  not  so.1 

Beyond  comes  a  wholly  different  order  of  things, — another 
life,  another  world.  This  is  what  Christianity  calls  the  super- 
natural world.  We  cannot  penetrate  it  by  the  aid  of  philoso- 
phy alone.2  We  can  enter  only  through  an  actual  new  birth, 
—  a  radical  cure,  which  allows  the  soul  to  return  wholly  and 
entirely  to  the  source  of  light,  and  no  longer  exclusively 
attend  to  the  objects  which  are  revealed  by  that  light.  And 
this  is  the  new  birth  which  follows  that  death  of  which 
Socrates  and  Plato  said :  "  To  philosophize  is  to  Jearn 
to  die." 

Thus  Plato  dimly  perceived  these  things,  and  he  speaks  of 
them ;  but  Christianity  alone  effects  them.  Saint  Augustine 
explains  this  as  follows. 

VII. 

God  exists  in  us  as  force,  as  light,  as  love ;  we  feel  him. 
But  this  natural  sense  of  the  soul,  given  to  all  by  the  presence 
of  God,  is  at  first  only  the  vague  and  indeterminate  attrac- 
tion towards  the  desirable  and  the  intelligible,  to  which  the 
soul  has  not  yet  responded.  A  few  very  imperfect  responses 
to  this  attraction  raise  it  to  the  point  which  we  have  men- 
tioned. There  must  be  a  decisive  answer,  which  God  inces- 
santly provokes,  which  is  God's  work  in  us  and  with  us, 
which  is  the  new  birth,  the  new  life.  The  soul  which  has 
entered  this  other  life  believes  in  the  Being,  hopes  for  the 
Truth,  and  desires  the  Good.  Its  three  natural  faculties  are 
actually  exercised  under  the  influence  of  their  supreme  ob- 
ject and  their  supernatural  life ;  the  implicit  basis  of  our 
being,  which  we  ourselves  do  not  know,  clings  to  the  eternal 
Being  through  faith  ;  the  intelligence  clings  to  the  light 
of  God  through  hope ;  the  will  clings  to  the  will  of  God 

1  Epist.  cxx.,  cap.  i.  6.  2  Ibid.  ,,4. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  121 

through  love.  "  Without  these  three  things,  no  soul  can  be 
healed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  see  God."  (Sine  tribus  istis 
anima  nulla  sanatur,  ut  possit  Deum  suum  videre.)  1 

Made  whole,  let  it  gaze  !  That  gaze  is  still  reason,  but 
set  free  and  made  clear-sighted ;  that  straightforward  look, 
that  perfect  look,  which  actually  follows  vision,  is  a  virtue ; 
that  look,  that  vision,  attain  to  God  himself.  What  a  gaze  ! 
The  gaze  of  "  the  soul  is  reason ;  but  every  eye  that  gazes  does 
not  yet  see ;  the  true  and  straightforward  gaze,  that  which 
sees,  is  a  virtue.  Yes,  true  reason,  upright  reason,  is  a  virtue. 
The  gaze  of  the  purified  soul,  therefore,  turns  towards  the 
light,  when  these  three  things  dwell  within  us, —  faith,  which 
believes  that  the  object  of  the  gaze  constitutes  happiness 
when  it  is  seen ;  hope,  which  knows  that  the  gaze  shall  see ; 
love,  which  desires  to  see  and  love.  Such  is  the  gaze  which 
follows  the  vision  of  God  himself,  and  this  is  the  final  end 
of  the  gaze ;  not  because  the  eye  then  rests,  but  because  it 
has  found  the  supreme  object  of  its  search.  Yes,  this  itself 
is  virtue,  —  reason  attaining  to  its  end  ;  it  is  supreme  virtue 
and  bliss.  As  for  vision  itself,  what  is  it  but  intelligence, 
actual  and  present  compounded  of  that  which  understands 
and  that  which  is  understood,  even  as  sight  depends  alike 
on  the  eye  and  the  light?"2 

These  words  are  most  profound  and  most  exactly  true. 
They  touch  and  solve  the  question  of  the  relation  between 
.Philosophy  and  Eeligion,  reason  and  faith. 

But  to  continue.  When  reason  reaches  its  end  (ratio 
perveniens  ad  finem  suum;  reXo?  rijs  Trope/a?),  then  truly 
begins  the  living,  real,  and  experimental  knowledge  of  God, 
that  knowledge  which  Saint  Augustine  calls  indeed  "  ex- 
perimentalem  Dei  notitiam"  —  a  strong  expression,  quoted 
and  adopted  by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas.  Then  only  do  the 
inner  senses  of  the  soul  develop  for  God ;  we^become 

i  Soliloq.,  lib.  i.  cap.  vi.  12.  2  Ibid.,  1 


122  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

master  of  the  other  senses,  because  the  divine  sense  tow- 
ers above  them ;  this  sense  itself  develops,  because  we  are 
master  of  the  other  senses.  Then,  too,  "  by  continence, 
verily,  is  the  soul  bound  up  and  brought  back  into  One, 
whence  it  was  dissipated  into  many  (per  continentiam 
colligimur  et  redigimur  in  unum,  a  quo  in  multa  defluxi- 
mus')"  1  Saint  Augustine  has  reached  this  point,  and  en- 
tered into  possession  of  the  inner  life  of  the  soul,  when 
he  exclaims :  "  My  life  at  last  shall  wholly  live,  as  wholly 
full  of  thee  (viva  erit  vita  mea,  totaque  plena  te\"  2  Then 
he  thus  invokes  the  source  of  his  life,  —  that  life  which  he 
possesses  and  touches,  which  he  sees,  whose  divine  savor  he 
tastes,  whose  celestial  perfumes  he  inhales :  — 

"  I  have  loved  thee  too  late,  0  thou  Beauty,  old  and  yet  ever 
new  !  I  have  loved  thee  too  late  !  Thou  wert  within  me  ;  I  was 
abroad.  And  I  sought  thee  abroad,  and  flinging  myself  upon 
those  beauties  created  by  thee,  I  lost  my  own  fair  form.  They 
held  me  far  from  thee,  those  beauties,  which  would  never  exist, 
did  they  not  exist  in  thee.  Thou  hast  called  me ;  thou  hast  cried 
aloud  ;  thou  hast  overcome  my  deafness.  Thou  hast  shone,  thou 
hast  sparkled,  and  thou  hast  triumphed  over  my  blindness.  Thy 
perfumes  made  themselves  manifest ;  I  breathed,  and  I  breathe 
for  thee ;  I  have  tasted  thee,  I  hunger  and  thirst  after  thee.  I 
have  touched  thee,  and  my  heart  has  ceased  to  long  for  aught 
save  the  abiding  peace  which  is  in  thee."  8 

VIII. 

We  have  seen  the  method  in  action,  and  then  the  theory 
of  the  method.  Let  us  now  proceed  to  the  results. 

Let  us  repeat,  the  philosophic  results  acquired  by  Saint 
Augustine  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  God  are  complete, 
exact,  absolute,  unmixed  with  error,  equivocation,  or  un- 

1  Confess.,  lib.  x.  cap.  xxix.  40.  8  Ibid.,  cap.  xxvii.  38. 

2  Ibid.,  cap.  xxviii.  39. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S   THEODICY.  123 

certainty.  This  is  the  philosophy  of  Christians.  This  is 
the  wisdom  mentioned  by  one  of  our  most  learned  teach- 
ers, "  which  is,"  he  says,  "  both  divine  and  human,  and 
which  is  therefore  properly  true  Christian  wisdom."  We 
mean  that  human  wisdom,  illumined  by  divine  wisdom, 
whose  existence  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  makes  clear  to  us  in 
these  words :  "  The  divine  wisdom  of  Christ  did  not  dim  his 
human  wisdom,  but  increased  its  clarity." 

In  considering,  therefore,  merely  the  advance  of  the  rational 
Theodicy,  the  purely  human  and  non-theological  side  of  wis- 
dom, we  must  show  not  only  the  transition  of  knowledge 
which  is  almost  solely  speculative  into  knowledge  which  is 
at  the  same  time  experimental  and  speculative,  but  also 
'observe  greater  scientific  precision  upon  capital  points, 
which,  moreover,  all  combine  in  a  single  one,  —  the  idea 
of  infinity. 

The  ancients  had  no  clear  idea  of  infinity  ;  the  moderns 
have  that  idea :  the  influence  of  Christianity  has  devel- 
oped it. 

Pythagoras  so  deceived  himself  upon  this  point  that  he 
gives  us  the  following  qualities,  quoted  by  Aristotle :  on  the 
one  hand,  the  finite,  perfect,  good,  etc. ;  on  the  other,  the 
infinite,  imperfect,  lad,  etc.  To  him,  finite  meant  finished, 
and  infinite  meant  indeterminate.  He  had  no  idea  of  the 
determinate,  finished,  perfect  infinite ;  that  is,  in  a  word,  of 
the  infinite,  which  he  confounded  with  the  indefinite. 

Plato  occasionally  hesitates  in  regard  to  this  matter.  Still 
he  sees  between  God  and  his  creatures  such  a  difference 
that  he  names  as  God  "  the  One  who  exists  absolutely  "  (ro5 
7rai>TeXw<?  oim),  and  calls  the  creatures  "  those  who  always 
become  and-  never  are "  (/cal  /JLTJ  OVTO).  This  implies  the 
idea  of  the  infinite.  But  there  is  an  equivocation  here.  Do 
God's  creatures  exist,  or  do  they  not  exist  ?  Plato  seems 
rather  to  say  that  they  do  not  exist;  and  he  is  forced  to 


124  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

this  conclusion  for  lack  of  a  high  enough  idea  of  the  infinite. 
For,  clearly  feeling  that  the  Being  of  God  and  the  being  of 
his  creatures  are  incomparable,  to  aggrandize  God  and  show 
that  he  is  matchless,  he  says  that  his  creatures  do  not  exist. 

Aristotle,  by  his  idea  of  the  motionless  motor,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  primary  cause,  which  is  pure  act,  implies  the 
idea  of  infinity :  however,  he  does  not  yet  fully  comprehend 
that  infinite ;  he  does  not  know  that  God  is  everywhere 
present  as  a  whole  ;  he  knows  that  God  is  in  the  world, 
but  he  thinks  that  he  occupies  a  central  point,  and  that  his 
creatures  receive  the  life  which  proceeds  from  him,  with 
more  or  less  abundance,  according  to  their  physical  distance 
from  that  centre.  Frequently,  moreover,  he  gives  us  most 
inexact  notions  of  the  metaphysical  infinite. 

But  that  which  especially  shows  us  how  little  idea  of  the 
infinite  the  ancients  had,  is  their  incapability  of  conceiving 
an  infinite  power,  —  in  other  words,  a  power  which  can 
create  from  nothing.  Have  we  not  seen  that  Aristotle, 
while  saying  that  this  world  is  the  work  of  God,  supposes  it 
eternal,  and  that  Plato  also  believes  matter  to  be  eternal  '\ 
Neither  of  them  knew  this  exact  principle,  most  unfamiliar 
even  in  the  present  day  :  Infinite  Being  is  infinite  in  every 
sense  ;  finite  being  is  finite  in  every  sense.  Whence  it  fol- 
lows that  finite  being  is  finite  in  duration :  therefore  it  did 
not  always  exist,  for  it  would  have  already  actually  infinite 
duration.  The  ancients  maintained  that  nothing  can  come 
from  nothing,  which  is  truth  itself,  if  there  be  not  an 
infinite  power;  but  if  there  be  an  infinite  power,  the  in- 
finity in  the  power  consists  precisely  in  its  creating,  that 
is  to  say,  producing  that  which  was  not,  or  in  producing 
from  nothing. 

Now,  all  this  has  been  known  from  the  first  ages  of  the 
Christian  Theodicy.  Saint  Augustine  develops  it,  avoiding 
all  errors  and  equivocations. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  125 

Far  from  confounding,  as  Pythagoras  does,  the  infinite 
with  the  imperfect,  —  two  things  which  are  exactly  opposite, 
he  says  of  the  wisdom  of  God  that  it  is  infinite :  "It  is 
manifest  that  the  measure  and  form  of  everything  arise 
thence,  and  that  it  may  be  suitably  called  infinite,  with 
respect  not  to  its  extension  in  space,  but  to  its  power, 
which  transcends  all  the  limits  of  human  thought." l  And 
he  adds  this  very  profound  remark :  "  Not  that  this  wis- 
dom is  formless  and  indeterminate,  like  a  body  which  has 
no  contour."  2  He  declares  in  these  words  concerning  that 
which  is  still  discussed  in  our  day,  —  that  the  infinite  is  in 
110  wise  the  indeterminate. 

In  the  same  place,  while  stating  that  God  is  not  infinite 
in  extent,  he  asserts  that  he  is  everywhere  and  wholly  pres- 
ent, —  which  is,  upon  this  point,  the  exact  and  absolute  for- 
mula :  3  "He  is  wholly  present  everywhere,  like  truth ;  and 
Truth  is  God  himself."  Saint  Augustine  points  out  the  two 
meanings  of  the  word  "  infinite,"  —  one  actually  signifying 
the  infinite,  while  the  other  is  very  inaccurate,  and  signifies 
the  indefinite,  increasing  size  whose  limit  is  not  known,  all  of 
which  is  not  visible.  In  the  inaccurate  sense  it  is  applied  to 
physical  size,  and  in  the  other  to  the  spiritual  greatness  of 
God :  "  In  this  sense  it  is  applied  to  the  incorporeal  great- 
ness which  we  call  total,  because  no  place  can  bound  it,  and 
which  may  ~be  called  loth  total  and  infinite :  total,  because 
it  lacks  nothing;  infinite,  because  it  is  not  limited  by  any 
circumscription."  4 

As  for  the  incomparable  distance  between  God  and  his 
creatures,  the  exact  and  explicit  idea  of  the  infinite  allows 
Saint  Augustine  to  conceive  of  it  without  destroying  the 
creatures.  Why  ?  Because  infinite  Being  is  such  that  finite 
being,  although  really  something,  is  nothing  when  compared 

1  Epist,  exviii.  cap.  iv.  24.  8  Ibid.,  23. 

2  Ibid.  4  Ibi(i. 


126  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

with  the  infinite,  —  which  is  an  exact  principle  now  adopted 
by  science.  Geometricians  and  algebraists  assert  and  are 
justified  in  asserting  this  formula :  The  addition  to  the  infi- 
nite of  any  quantity,  however  great,  adds  nothing ; l  and  this 
other :  However  great  a  quantity  may  be,  when  compared  to 
the  infinite  it  becomes  nothing.  This  is  expressed  in  the 
Holy  Scriptures  by  the  text:  "My  being  is  as  nothing  be- 
fore thee,  0  my  God  ! "  2  And  Saint  Augustine  says  :  "  Why 
compare  with  the  infinite  a  finite  thing,  however  great  it 
may  be  ? " 3  And  elsewhere,  commenting  on  the  phrase : 
"I  am  He  who  is,"  he  says:4  "God  exists  in  such  manner 
that,  compared  to  him,  that  which  has  been  created  does  not 
exist.  Created  beings,  not  compared  to  God,  actually  exist ; 
for  they  exist  through  him ;  but  if  they  be  compared  to  God, 
they  do  not  exist;  for  the  true  Being  is  the  immutable  Being, 
and  he  alone  is  immutable." 

Nothing  can  be  more  exact  and  precise  than  these  words. 

Finally,  if  we  seek  in  Saint  Augustine's  works  for  his  ideas 
concerning  the  origin  of  things,  the  creation,  the  relation  be- 
tween God  and  his  creatures,  and  between  the  creatures  and 
God,  here  above  all  we  must  admire  the  precise,  explicit,  and 
exact  knowledge  of  the  great  teacher,  —  a  truly  mathematical 
knowledge  of  the  infinite,  the  finite,  and  their  mutual  relations. 
Those  absolute  assertions,  which  the  imagination  does  not 
conceive,  but  which  figures  and  geometry  prove,  exist  already 
in  that  powerful  reason  which  aids  the  energy  of  faith  to 
surpass  imagination.  Saint  Augustine  says  boldly,  leaning 
upon  the  Catholic  faith,  and  also  because  reason  requires  it 
and  the  idea  of  the  infinite  proves  it,  God  made  all  from 
nothing.  It  is  clearly  understood  that  Saint  Augustine  avoids 
here  the  absurdity  of  those  sophists  in  all  ages  who  consider 

1  Algebra  gives  us  these  formulae,  which  geometry  confirms :  oo  4-  =  oo, 
and  _  =  0. 

oo 

2  Ps.  xxxviii.  6.        8  Enar.  rat.  in  Psalt.  xxxvi.  16.        *  Ibid.,  cxxxiv.  ?. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  127 

nothing  as  something.  He  goes  on  to  explain :  "  The  crea- 
ture does  not  proceed  from  the  divine  nature,  but  from  noth- 
ing.1 To  be  created  out  of  nothing  is  the  same  thing  as  not 
to  be  of  the  same  nature  with  God.2  When  we  say  'God 
made  all  from  nothing/  we  say  no  more  than  this :  '  He  had 
nothing  outside  himself  with  which  to  make  his  work,  he 
made  it  because  he  willed  it.'  "  3  This  was  expressed  by  the 
Greek  Fathers  thus :  "  He  made  beings  which  were  not."  4 

God  made  all  from  nothing  is  one  of  those  absolute  propo- 
sitions implying  the  infinite ;  that  is  to  say,  incomprehensible, 
which  the  imagination  does  not  conceive ,  but  in  metaphysics 
it  is  an  exact  truth,  and  we  find  very  evident  traces  of  it  in 
mathematics.  When,  for  instance,  algebraic  formulae  teach 
us  th&t  finite  greatness,  however  great,  multiplying  zero  always 
produces  zero,  it  corresponds  to  the  axiom  Ex  nihilo  nihil, 
Nothing  from  nothing.  But  if,  instead  of  taking  a  finite 
quantity  as  multiplier,  we  take  the  infinite,  the  statement 
becomes :  Zero  multiplied  by  the  infinite  gives  us  all  finite 
greatness. 

So,  too,  no  finite  force  can  create,  can  produce  from  noth- 
ing ;  but  the  omnipotent  infinite  can  create  or  produce  from 
nothing. 

We  shall  develop  in  its  proper  place  a  truly  wonderful 
theory  of  the  creation,  found  in  Saint  Augustine  at  the  close 
of  his  book  "De  Musica."  This  amazing  intuition  of  the 
basis  of  things  is,  moreover,  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
answer  which  science  is  now  preparing  to  the  great  question, 
What  is  matter  ? 

We  do  not  dwell  upon  the  sum  total  of  the  results  con- 
tained in  Saint  Augustine's  works ;  these  results  are  truth 
itself,  as  Christianity  gives  it  to  us,  as  human  reason  under- 
stands it  in  that  light,  as  the  modern  world  knows  it,  as  we 

1  Contra  Jul,  lib.  v.  xxxi.  *  Ad  Oros.,  iii. 

2  Ibid.,  xlii.  *  T&  uvra.  tirolrifffv  IK 


128  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

have  taught  it  to  our  children  ever  since  the  first  century  of 
the  Christian  era. 

IX. 

Let  us  sum  up  this  doctrine. 

How  can  we  know  God  ?  What  is  the  course  of  reason, 
from  the  blindness  and  ignorance  in  which  we  are  born,  up 
to  the  time  when  we  see  God  ? 

The  first  step  is  a  practical  one.  Few  men  use  their  reason 
to  rise  to  God.  The  soul  must  be  purified.  The  soul  is 
given  over  to  the  senses.  It  must  be  brought  back  to  reason 
(regressus  in  rationem).  Attached  to  earth,  the  soul  is  parted 
from  itself  and  from  God :  it  knows  neither  God  nor  reason. 
The  soul  requires  a  first  purification,  under  the  natural  moral 
law,  which  shall  free  it  from  animality  and  raise  it  to  a  ra- 
tional state.  Let  it  return  to  itself  by  a  first  effort  to  resist 
the  senses  which  divide  it,  and  it  will  recover  its  reason,  the 
judge  of  its  sens.es.  But  reason,  beholding  itself,  sees  that 
it  is  imperfect  and  changeable  (quce  se  quoque  in  me  compe- 
riens  mutabilem).  Now,  to  see  change  and  mutability,  is  to 
regret  the  immutable  which  it  conceives  by  contrast  (unde 
nosset  ipsum  immutabile,  quod  nisi  aliquo  modo  nosset,  mdlo 
modo  illud  mutabili  prceponeret).  Reason  therefore,  judging 
itself,  rises  above  itself  and  understands  itself  (erexit  se  ad  in- 
telligentiam  suam).  It  sees  that  it  is  not  light  by  itself,  and 
seeks  to  know  what  that  light  is  by  which  it  is  enlightened 
(ut  inveniret  quo  lumine  aspergeretur).  Thus  it  understands 
the  invisible  divine  by  the  sight  of  that  which  is  created 
(tune  invisibilia  tua  per  ea  qucefacta  sunt  intellecta  conspexi). 

But  how  can  we  conceive  of  the  immutable  by  seeing  that 
which  is  mutable  ?  How  are  we  to  seek  eternity  thus  in 
time  itself  (in  mutabilibus  et  temporalibus  ceternitatem  quce- 
reremus)  ?  It  is  because  we  cling  to  God  and  are  joined  to 
him  (unde  penderemus) ;  because  we  only  exist  and  live  in 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  129 

so  far  as  we  cling  to  him  (semper  ab  illo  fieri  debemus  inhce- 
rentes  ei) ;  because,  thenceforth,  we  are  conscious  of  him  by 
a  sort  of  occult  memory  (per  quamdam  occultam  memoriam); 
by  a  luminous  impression  of  the  Sovereign  Good  (impressa 
notio  ipsius  Boni}\  by  a  sort  of  inner  sense  which  urges  us 
to  seek  him  always  (interior  nescio  quce  conscientia  quceren- 
dutn  Deum). 

This  is  the  true  inward  principle,  the  power  and  mainspring 
which  lift  us  to  reason  and  to  God,  starting  from  the  senses 
in  which  we  were  buried. 

But  it  is  not  necessary,  in  order  to  return  from  the  senses 
to  reason,  and  from  reason  to  God,  to  suppress  the  use  of  the 
senses.  The  use  and  acuteness  of  the  senses  is  one  thing ; 
their  abuse  is  another  thing  (aliud  est  utilitas,  vivacitas  sen- 
tiendi ;  aliud  libido  sentiendi).  On  the  contrary,  we  must 
make  use  of  them  to  rise  and  make  a  stepping-stone  of  them. 
It  is  in  our  sensations  that  we  find  the  first  vestiges  of  reason 
(tenemus  qucedam  vestigia  rationis  in  sensibus) ;  the  mind 
finds  these  traces  as  soon  as  it  discerns  in  the  sensation  the 
sign  and  the  significance  (aliud  sensus ; .  .  .  aliud  per  sensuni ; 
pulcher  motus,  et  pulchra  motus  siguificatio).  Keason  also 
takes  sensible  things  as  stepping-stones  (qucesivit  gradus), 
stepping-s tones  to  rise  to  God  himself  (gradus  ad  immortalia 
faciendus).  The  earth,  says  the  Gospel,  is  the  footstool  of 
God.  Eeason  contemplates  sensible  things  that  it  may  make 
use  of  them,  but  contemplates  them  soberly  (in  eos  ipsos  pau- 
lulum  aciem  detorsit),  in  order  to  seize  the  sensation  less  in 
itself  than  for  what  it  signifies  (ratio  vidit  quid  inter  sonum, 
et  id  cujus  signum  esset,  distaret).  This  it  does  through  its 
great  power  of  abstraction  (ista  potentissima  secernendi). 
And  what  does  it  find  as  the  meaning  of  the  visible  symbol- 
ism of  nature  ?  It  finds  the  geometric  laws,  forms,  and  num- 
bers which  govern  phenomena  (intelligent  regnare  numeros). 
It  at  once  understands  that  these  laws  are  eternal  and  divine 


130  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

(reperiebat  divinos  et  sempiternos).  But  these  forms  and 
numbers,  these  laws,  in  brief,  are  only  actually  found  in  ma- 
terial bodies  in  the  state  of  shadows  and  vestiges  (in  his  quce 
sentiuntur  umbras  eorum  potius  atque  vestigia).  It  is  only 
in  reason  itself  that  reason  finds  them  absolute  and  true 
(quas  in  seipsa  cogitando  intuebatur  verissimas). 

Here,  then,  I  have  something  eternal  and  absolute. 
Henceforth  I  no  longer  work  at  random  to  lift  myself  to 
the  divine  (non  temere  jam  qucerit  ilia  divina). 

But  is  it  God  himself  that  I  see  when  I  see  these  true  and 
absolute  principles,  these  numbers,  laws,  and  axioms  ?  Far 
from  it,  certainly.  If  it  were  God,  the  sight  would  over- 
whelm me  with  joy  (tantum  gauderem  quantum  Deo  cog- 
nito).  Between  these  truths  and  the  holy  majesty  of  God, 
there  is  all  the  distance  that  there  is  between  heaven  and 
earth,  or  the  sun  and  the  objects  upon  which  it  shines 
(quantum  in  suo  genere  a  ccelo  terram,  tantum  ab  intel- 
liyibili  Dei  majestate  spectamina  ilia  disciplina  vera  et 
certa  differre).  These  truths,  such  as  we  see  them,  are 
not  God ;  they  are  sights  lit  up  in  us  by  the  sun  of  God- 
There  is,  therefore,  one  world,  the  world  of  sense ;  another 
world,  the  world  of  intelligence ;  and  above  them  both, 
the  Father  of  worlds  (duos  mundos,  et  ipsum  parentem 
universitatis). 

Eeason  advances  from  the  world  of  sense  to  the  world  of 
intelligence  by  the  steps  which  we  have  just  described. 
But  to  see  God  himself,  reason  must  be  transformed  and 
become  energy.  It  becomes  energy  by  becoming  pure  and 
perfect  reason  (est  enim  virtus  vel  recta  vel  perfecta  ratio). 
It  becomes  energy  when  it  attains  its  supreme  end  (hcec  est 
vere  perfecta  virtus,  ratio  perveniens  adfinem  suum).  What 
is  that  end  ?  The  very  vision  of  God  (ipsa  visio  Dei  quce  est 
finis  aspectus).  This  is  supernatural,  and  comes  through 
the  three  virtues  which  God  gives,  —  Faith,  Hope,  and 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  131 

Charity,  —  three  virtues  without  which  no  soul  can  be 
healed  in  such  manner  as  to  see  God  (Fides,  Spes,  Caritas, 
.  .  .  sine  tribus  istis  anima  nulla  sanatur,  ut  possit  Deum 
suum  videre).  To  see  God,  —  this  is  the  final  aim  of  reason,  in 
the  soul  united  to  God :  this  vision  is  the  union  of  the  soul 
which  sees,  with  God  himself,  who  is  seen  (intellectus  ille 
qui  conficitur  ex  intelligente  et  eo  quod  intelligitur). 

But  all  this  course  is  the  fruit  of  the  successive  purifica- 
tion of  the  soul.  It  is  clear  that  the  soul  which,  turning  away 
from  God,  should  seek  its  own  light,  to  the  exclusion  of  that 
of  God,  would  find  only  shadows  (anima  si  ad  lucem  suam 
attenderit  tenebratur  ;  si  ad  lucem  Dei,  illuminatur).  The 
more  the  soul,  turned  away  from  the  light  of  justice,  strug- 
gles, the  farther  it  is  removed  from  light,  and  the  deeper 
it  is  buried  in  the  gulf  of  shadows  (anima  avertens  se  a  luce 
justitice,  quanta  magis  qucerit  tanto  plus  a  luce  repellitur,  et 
in  tenebrosa  repellitur). 

Such  is,  according  to  Saint  Augustine,  the  course  of  rea- 
son towards  God. 

It  is  very  plain  that  this  course  of  reason  implies  all 
philosophy,  —  logic,  morals,  knowledge  of  the  soul  and  of 
God. 

Thus  we  desire  first  to  exhibit  philosophy,  in  its  broad  out- 
lines, to  the  attentive  intelligences  which  may  consent  to 
follow  us.  We  try  to  put  before  them  in  living  form  the 
actual  thought  of  all  wise  men  of  the  first  order.  Their  ac- 
cord gives  us  the  teachings  of  a  human  authority  without  a 
parallel.  Intelligence  and  clear  vision  are  requisite.  I  only 
ask  you  to  show  respect  and  attention  to  these  authorities. 
Eespectful  attention  to  the  words  and  testimony  of  these 
sublime  geniuses  or  saints  who,  more  than  any  others,  have 
sought  and  seen  the  truth,  will  soon  direct  your  gaze  to  that 
truth  itself,  which  all  have  seen,  which  all  describe  with 
one  accord,  each  aiding  the  other  by  his  splendid  testimony. 


182  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

Little  by  little,  their  words  will  lead  you  to  see  for  your- 
selves the  intelligible  object  which  they  contemplated  as 
they  spoke.  Or  rather,  as  Saint  Augustine  tells  us,  the 
Master  who  enlightened  them,  the  sole  Master  of  all  men, 
who  is  in  you  as  he  was  in  them,  will  show  you  the 
meaning  of  the  words  uttered  by  his  most  advanced  dis- 
ciples. You  will  see  in  the  light  itself  the  assurance,  as 
well  as  the  omissions,  in  their  teachings  and  in  ours. 

X. 

We  have  now  given  a  most  imperfect  account  of  Saint 
Augustine's-  Philosophy.  We  have  been  forced  to  select 
from  his  vast  store  of  riches,  and  perhaps  have  omitted  the 
best.  We  have  grasped  and  separated  from  the  living 
current  of  his  thought  certain  features  which  seem  chilled 
by  isolation.  We  have  done  what  may  be  worse  yet, — 
we  have  repeated,  out  of  place  and  out  of  connection,  some 
few  of  the  deep  accents  of  his  soul  and  his  love;  and  if 
these  accents  fall  upon  the  ear  of  one  who  does  not  love, 
who  does  not  believe  or  hope,  they  cannot  be  understood, 
The  inexperienced  heart,  which  has  never  lived  the  life 
of  the  most  sublime  and  saintly  love,  cannot  comprehend 
Saint  Augustine.  How  must  it  be  with  the  empty,  impure, 
and  perverse  soul  ?  Destitute  of  the  divine  perceptions 
developed  in  the  soul  of  the  saint,  how  should  I  understand 
that  which  senses  I  do  not  possess  permit  him  to  see,  smell, 
taste,  hear,  and  touch  of  God  ?  If  he  tells  me  of  those 
lights,  those  perfumes,  and  those  voices,  I  am  like  a  blind 
man  listening  to  an  account  of  the  sunrise :  I  hear  the 
words,  I  cannot  see  the  things  ;  the  words  do  not  correspond 
to  the  life  I  know,  but  to  that  which  I  do  not  know ;  and 
then  how  often  I  am  tempted  to  say,  These  are  words,  and 
nothing  more ! 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  133 

Bead  Saint  Augustine  in  the  poetic  period  of  early  youth. 
If  your  soul  be  beautiful,  you  will  find  a  certain  charm; 
because  there  is  nothing  more  complete  than  his  genius,  and 
the  sacred  inspiration  of  the  loftiest  poetry  pervades  his 
work.  But  you  will  not  understand  his  knowledge,  because 
you  have  no  knowledge  of  your  own ;  you  will  feel  nothing 
of  his  love,  because  you  have  as  yet  no  love  yourself,  or  the 
love  which  you  have  is  of  another  order.  Take  up  Saint 
Augustine  twenty  years  later,  when  your  soul  has  developed, 
—  for  if  the  light  of  your  soul  is  dimmed,  you  will  not  take 
up  his  work,  —  re-read  him  after  you  have  lived,  sought,  suf- 
fered, and  struggled  for  the  truth ;  then  you  will  know  that 
mind  and  that  soul  which  you  did  not  know  before:  you 
will  be  amazed  that  you  could  have  read  without  under- 
standing, and  looked  without  seeing.  You  will  see  the  life 
under  the  words;  and  if  you  have  yourself  at  times  half 
seen  the  light,  if  you  have  possessed  wisdom  but  for  an  hour, 
it  is  that  wisdom  and  that  light,  all  whose  virtues,  all  whose 
beams,  you  recover  here. 

From  this  point  of  view  only  can  we  judge  the  great  sys- 
tem of  philosophy  of  the  modern  world,  of  which  Saint 
Augustine  is  the  Plato ;  we  can  understand  the  likeness  and 
all  the  difference  between  these  two  brother  geniuses,  born 
under  different  skies ;  and  in  this  difference  we  seize  upon 
the  chief  feature  in  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  —  a 
feature  which,  if  it  be  understood,  at  last  shows  us  what 
Philosophy,  the  true,  total,  useful  Philosophy,  is. 

Christian  dogma  teaches  us  that  there  is  the  same  differ- 
ence between  the  old  Mosaic  law  and  the  new  law  of  Jesus 
that  there  is  between  the  precept  and  the  life,  and  the 
same  difference  between  these  two  states  of  religion  in  his- 
tory that  there  is  between  the  image  and  the  reality.  When 
we  are  closely  acquainted  with  Plato  and  Saint  Augustine, 
and  have  actually  practised  their  teachings,  we  see  that 


134  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

there  is  in  several  respects,  between  the  two  systems  of 
philosophy,  the  same  difference  as  there  is  between  the  old 
and  the  new  law. 

Several  Fathers  of  the  Church  have  compared  Greek  phi- 
losophy to  the  old  law  ;  they  regard  it  as  a  sort  of  evangelical 
preparation,  and  look  upon  true  philosophers  as  prophets.1 
Now,  as  the  Gospel  tells  us,  when  Christianity  came,  it  came, 
not  to  destroy  the  law,  but  to  fulfil  it;  so  too  it  does  not 
come  to  destroy  the  human  fruit  of  philosophic  thought,  but 
to  ripen  it.  It  effects  in  the  human  mind  and  its  imperish- 
able philosophy  precisely  the  same  revolution  which  it  causes 
in  the  eternal  and  universal  religion  of  mankind. 

We  have  seen  that  Plato  desired,  awaited,  dimly  foresaw 
this  divine  revelation ;  Saint  Augustine  declared  it  to  be 
accomplished;  and  the  eye  which  can  judge  sees  it  indeed, 
longed  for  in  Plato,  fulfilled  in  Saint  Augustine. 

I  repeat  it,  the  fundamental  fact  in  the  history  of  the  hu- 
man mind  has  been  accomplished.  Philosophy,  properly  so 
called  (I  do  not  refer  to  Theology,  which  is  distinct  from  it), 
Philosophy,  I  say,  has  passed  from  infancy  to  manhood. 

Of  the  two  regions  of  the  world  of  intelligence  perceived 
by  all  who  foresaw  the  light,  the  human  mind  occupied  one, 
and,  by  a  certain  conjecture,  regretted  the  other;  now  it 
occupies  both. 

There  are  two  regions  in  the  world  of  intelligence,  let  us 
again  repeat  with  Plato :  first  that  of  God  himself,  and  then 
that  of  divine  phantoms,  shadows  of  that  which  is,  essential 
truths,  eternal  and  absolute,  but  which  are  not  God.  Now, 
Plato  is,  of  all  men  of  the  old  world,  the  one  most  familiar 
with  this  distinction.  Plato  went  as  far  as  human  reason 
can  go  in  its  first  estate.  He  saw  all  that  exists  in  man ;  he 
reached  the  very  apex  of  the  soul ;  he  teaches,  as  Saint  Au- 

1  Saint  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Saint  Justin.  See  Melchio  Cano,  lib.  x. 
cap.  iv.  and  vi. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S   THEODICY  135 

gustine  observes,  that  the  sight  of  the  essence  of  God  is  given 
by  a  light  absolutely  distinct  from  man,  absolutely  divine ; 
he  knows  that  this  light  is  God,  that  its  source  is  the  Sover- 
eign Good ;  he  asserts  that  our  soul  is  capable  of  attaining  to 
the  direct  and  immediate  vision  of  this  source  of  light.  And 
yet  Saint  Augustine  says  of  Plato :  He  saw  only  the  image 
of  God ;  he  did  not  find  the  true  way  to  attain  to  the  sover- 
eign Good ;  he  dealt  with  the  eternal  images  of  the  True,  not 
with  the  True  itself;  he  dealt  with  that  truth  which  is  not 
God,  but  which  is  his  image ; 1  that  is  to  say,  Plato  did  not 
see  the  two  regions,  the  difference  between  which  he  knew, 
he  saw  the  lower  of  the  two,  and  conjectured  the  other. 

"It  is  one  thing  to  see  our  peaceful  fatherland  from  the  top  of 
a  mountain  and  from  the  bosom  of  a  wild  forest,  without  the  abil- 
ity to  find  the  road,  and  to  seek  a  path  of  escape  in  vain  amidst 
enemies  who  surround  and  pursue  us,  ...  it  is  quite  another 
thing  actually  to  hasten  over  the  road  which  leads  us  home."2 

"Platonists,  therefore,  know,  after  a  certain  fashion,  invisible, 
immutable,  immaterial  nature ;  but  the  path  that  leads  to  this 
supreme  beatitude,  namely,  Jesus  Christ  crucified,  seems  to  them 
contemptible,  they  refuse  to  follow  it,  and  thenceforth  can  never 
reach  the  sanctuary  which  is  its  resting-place  and  end,  although 
the  light  that  proceeds  from  it  strikes  their  intelligence  with  a  dis- 
tant radiance."3 

It  would  take  too  long  to  explain  here  of  what  use  the 
Cross  of  Christ  may  be  in  philosophy.  But  the  rest  of  this 
book  will,  we  hope,  show  it  in  a  scientific  way.  There  will 
be  found  the  deepest  of  philosophic  truths,  which  was  not 
sufficiently  well  known.  As  it  has  been  said  that  there  are 
two  watersheds  in  history,  one  on  this  side  the  Cross,  the 
other  on  the  other  side,  so  too  it  must  be  said  that  the  same 
holds  good  of  the  human  mind.  These  two  watersheds  are 

1  Confess.,  lib.  vii.  cap.  ix.  14.  8  Epist.,  cxx.  cap.  i.  4. 

2  Ibid.,  lib.  viii.  cap.  xxi.  27. 


136  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

just  those  two  regions  of  the  world  of  intelligence  described 
by  Plato  and  all  other  philosophers  after  him. 

Now,  at  that  period  of  history  at  which  we  write,  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  human  mind  is  clearly 
full  of  trouble,  confusion,  and  contradiction.  Minds  delib- 
erate, are  excited,  hesitate,  repel,  exclude,  condemn,  and  at- 
tack one  another  around  a  single  point,  —  Christianity.  War 
is  waged  around  the  Cross.  Some  desire  to  overthrow  it 
and  return  to  the  antique  world  behind  the  Cross ;  others 
strive  to  uphold  it  and  advance  into  the  new  world  beyond 
it.  Meantime,  and  while  the  battle  rages,  the  mass  of  man- 
kind dwell  in  an  arid  desert  midway  between  the  Promised 
Land  and  Egypt,  —  Egypt,  to  which  they  will  not  return, 
and  the  Promised  Land,  which  they  will  surely  enter.  But 
those  who  refuse  to  go  thither  will  die  in  the  desert,  and 
will  drag  us  down  with  them,  until  a  new  generation  shall 
arise,  whom  God  may  find  resolved  to  follow  him. 

The  sterilizers,  the  mortal  foes  of  all  progress  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  are,  in  philosophy,  those  now  called  rationalists. 
I  call  those  rationalists  who  rely  upon  pure  reason  in  such 
a  way  as  to  exclude  faith  and  all  supernatural  aid.  We 
defend  the  rights  of  human  reason,  they  say.  We  reply, 
By  defending  the  rights  of  human  reason  as  you  do,  do  you 
know  the  depths  to  which  you  have  allowed  Philosophy  to 
fall  ?  I  do  not  say  below  the  seventeenth  century,  below  the 
thirteenth  century,  below  the  time  of  the  Fathers.  I  say  below 
Aristotle  and  Plato,  far  below  that  beautiful  Greek  philoso- 
phy which  we  uphold  and  which  you  cannot  uphold ;  you 
have  taken  it  back  and  delivered  it  over  to  the  sophists 
before  Socrates.  Gorgias  and  Protagoras  have  returned :  they 
live,  they  teach,  they  speak  and  write.  We  hear  nothing 
else ;  for  as  for  you,  you  are  no  longer  heard.  You  who 
claim  to  uphold  Aristotle,  Plato,  and  Descartes,  and  who 
reject  the  Cross  of  Christ  as  the  guide  of  a  fresh  advance 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  137 

in  the  world  of  intellect,  what  are  you  doing  ?  You  deny 
Plato's  last  and  highest  thought.  He  desired  to  turn 
towards  the  sun  which  had  not  yet  risen;  and  you  require 
us  to  turn  away  from  the  sun  which  is  actually  shining.  I 
call  that  the  Judaism  of  philosophy ;  and  to  this  Judaism  we 
say,  with  Saint  Paul :  Hebrcei  sunt,  plus  ego  !  You  are  for 
Aristotle  and  Plato,  we  are  for  them  more  than  you;  you 
are  for  them,  as  the  Jews  were  for  Moses ;  you  reject  him 
whom  they  awaited.  Is  this  supporting  Plato  ?  It  is  de- 
stroying him  in  his  totality  ;  it  is  denying  what  Plato  called 
the  goal  of  the  onward  march,  the  end  of  the  process ;  it  is 
taking  for  final  realities  those  truths,  absolute  no  doubt, 
but  empty,  which  he  called  shadows  of  the  world  of  in- 
telligence and  divine  phantoms ;  it  is  taking  Plato's  dialec- 
tic in  exactly  the  wrong  way  on  this  point ;  and  I  shall  show 
you  that  the  only  rationalistic  philosophy,  which  moves  and 
stirs  to-day,  is  nothing  but  an  inversion  of  the  Platonic 
dialectic.1 

What  is  to  be  done  ?  We  must  grow  and  advance,  as 
Plato  did  in  Saint  Augustine.  We  must  maintain  the 
distinction  between  the  two  regions  of  the  world  of  intelli- 
gence. A\7e  must  learn  that  the  first  is  merely  shadows  and 
images,  and  is  useful  only  as  an  image  and  prophecy  of  the 
second.  It  is  the  second  that  we  must  enter,  with  our 
whole  soul,  as  Plato  expresses  it,  that  is,  with  heart,  life, 
and  mind.  There  must  be  that  total  change  of  soul  which 
turns  us  away  from  the  shadows  seen  on  the  walls  of  the 
cave,  towards  the  light  and  the  objects  which  cast  the 
shadows.  We  must  pass  from  that  natural  vision  of  God, 
mediately  and  indirectly  perceived  in  the  essential  truths  of 
reason,  to  that  other  vision  of  God,  the  direct  and  immediate, 
which  Christianity  calls  supernatural ;  in  short,  we  must 
pass  from  the  light  of  God,  seen  in  ourselves,  to  the  light  of 
1  See  the  Logic,  Book  II. 


138  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

God  seen  in  God  himself.  We  must  advance  from  reason 
to  faith,  the  dim  and  imperfect  beginning  of  that  other  light. 
Does  it  follow  from  this  that  we  forsake  reason?  No, 
says  Saint  Augustine,  we  urge  it  to  its  last  term,  we  make 
of  it  a  virtue,  by  rooting  it  in  the  faith  which  it  preceded 
and  which  it  sought.  For  reason,  as  it  is  given  to  us,  and  as 
it  illumines  us  when  we  enter  this  world,  teaches  us  to  con- 
clude the  existence  of  the  other  light,  which  is  the  direct 
vision  of  God  in  himself,  —  a  direct  vision  which  the  indirect 
vision  of  God  within  ourselves  leads  us  to  suspect.  And 
the  rough  outline  of  this  vision  is  faith,  —  faith,  that  attempt 
at  vision,  as  Bossuet  says ;  faith,  that  eye  of  the  heart,  says 
Saint  Augustine ;  faith,  that  incipient  vision,  says  Saint 
Thomas.  Will  that  new  vision  destroy  the  other?  Will 
that  divine  knowledge  overwhelm  my  human  knowledge? 
Will  my  acquaintance  with  God  deprive  me  of  my  acquain- 
tance with  myself,  and  that  of  God  which  that  acquaintance 
implies  ?  Saint  Augustine  asserts  that,  even  in  the  world  to 
come,  the  soul  shall  see  God,  both  in  himself  and  in  itself, — 
which  shows  that  our  knowledge  will  remain  eternally,  both 
human  and  divine,  —  and  that  that  wisdom,  of  which  philoso- 
phy is  the  beginning,  shall  endure.  For  if  philosophy  be 
only  God  seen  within  us,  the  eternal  vision  is  only  God  seen 
in  himself. 

And  when  Saint  Augustine  says  further :  "  There  is  within 
my  heart  a  depth  which  I  do  not  know,  and  which  thou 
knowest,  Lord !  a  depth  which  is  nought  but  shadows  until 
it  becomes  light  beneath  the  splendor  of  thy  face,"  —  Saint 
Augustine,  speaking  thus,  leads  us  to  understand  that  he 
perceives  the  two  regions  of  the  soul  corresponding  to  the 
two  regions  of  the  world  of  intelligence. 

All  philosophers  have  referred  to  this  sanctuary  of  the 
soul,  where  God  is,  and  where  he  is  necessarily,  as  the  cause 
of  my  being  and  my  life.  They  have  spoken  of  that  point 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S  THEODICY.  139 

where  God  touches  the  soul  to  join  it  to  himself,  by  which 
he  makes  it  living  by  holding  it  in  his  hand.  Who  does 
not  know  that  this  is  beyond  all  philosophy  ?  The  world 
touches  us  on  the  surface,  God  at  the  centre,  and  we  are 
between  the  two,  and  three  worlds  live  in  us,  —  God,  Nature, 
and  ourselves.  Our  soul  is  the  temple,  the  place  of  contem- 
plation. The  centre,  where  God  lives  in  us,  is  the  sanctuary. 
The  circumference,  where  the  world  lives  in  us,  is  the  outer 
entrance.  The  intermediate  enclosure  is  our  proper  abode ; 
it  is  double,  and  is  called  intelligence  and  will,  —  will  is  the 
more  central,  intelligence  more  external. 

Plato  describes  a  cave,  in  illustration  of  the  progress  and 
degrees  of  philosophy.  We  may  be  allowed  to  describe  a 
temple. 

In  childhood  we  play  about  the  entrance ;  if  we  attain  to 
manhood  of  mind,  we  enter  the  enclosure.  The  entrance  is 
illumined  only  by  the  light  of  the  material  sun ;  the  enclosure 
is  illumined  only  by  the  sacred  flame  which  shines  at  the 
centre.  The  splendid  images  of  the  enclosure,  the  forms 
which  cover  it,  are  the  divine  phantoms  of  which  Plato 
speaks.  We  gaze  at  them ;  Christ,  on  entering  the  temple, 
himself  gazed  at  the  adornments  ;  he  saw  wherein  the  sacred 
edifice  conformed  to  the  divine  model. 

But  there  is  a  difference  between  the  temple  of  the  soul 
and  those  temples  built  by  the  hand  of  man :  in  these  latter, 
the  lamp  which  lights  the  sanctuary  is  a  pale  image  of  the 
sun ;  in  the  temple  of  the  soul,  on  the  contrary,  the  sun  is 
but  a  pale  image  of  the  lamp.  Now,  there  are  some  souls 
which  have  attained  to  the  inner  degree  of  the  intellectual 
life,  which  move  inwardly  about  the  temple,  but  do  not 
approach  the  altar.  To  approach  the  altar,  one  must  go 
past  the  will ;  reason  must  become  energy.  Such  minds  are 
unwilling  to  look  at  anything  but  these  images  of  God,  and 
they  become  adorers  of  those  sacred  forms  which  are  within 


140  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

us,  and  are  ourselves :  as  those  who  remain  at  the  threshold 
remain  adorers  of  visible  nature,  which  is  less  than  we  are. 
These  are  the  two  philosopic  sects  which  place  either  in 
nature  or  in  man  "  the  sovereign  Good,  the  cause  of  the 
world,  the  fulcrum  of  reason." 

Where  does  genuine  philosophy  begin  and  end  ?  -  It  be- 
gins in  the  soul,  which,  having  gazed  at  those  divine  phan- 
toms illumined  by  the  holy  light  proceeding  from  the 
centre,  perceives  that  as  yet  it  has  seen  its  surface  only, 
and  not  its  depth  ;  that  all  the  light  of  the  enclosure  comes 
from  the  centre,  and  that  in  order  to  gaze  at  the  sacred 
images  it  has  never  ceased  to  turn  its  back  upon  the  source 
of  light,  the  inner  sanctuary,  the  central  place,  the  abode  of 
God  in  us.  This  is  the  first  step  of  true  philosophy.  Its 
second  step  is  to  conclude  that,  if  the  images  are  so  fair,  the 
model  is  far  more  beautiful,  and  that  the  term  of  contem- 
plation and  the  purpose  of  the  temple  is  the  direct  con- 
templation of  the  Holy  of  Holies ;  that  this  Holy  of  Holies 
is  in  us,  but  is  not  us ;  that  we  have  seen  its  reflections 
shining  on  the  enclosure,  on  the  inner  surface  of  the  soul, 
and  that  we  shall  see  its  source  in  our  centre.  We  under- 
stand that  there  is  within  us  a  central  enclosure  to  which 
we  have  never  penetrated,  and  that  we  must  make  our  way 
there  at  last  by  traversing  the  will.  Plato  goes  thus  far,  but 
Saint  Augustine  goes  farther  yet:  he  performs  what  Plato 
thinks;  he  takes  his  eye  from  those  arches  and  all  their 
splendor ;  he  ceases  to  move  curiously  about  the  temple  ; 
he  turns  towards  the  sanctuary,  moves  towards  the  altar, 
ascends  the  steps ;  he  becomes  a  priest ; l  he  opens  the 
tabernacle  to  touch,  see,  and  hear  God,  to  taste  him  and 
live  by  him.  He  turns  back :  the  temple  is  no  longer  empty, 
—  it  is  full  of  the  stir  of  people ;  gone  are  the  images  and 
the  statues;  now,  the  images  of  God  are  men. 

1  Gens  sancta,  regale  sanctorum. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE'S   THEODICY.  141 

It  seems  that  the  soul  which  has  tasted  God,  —  God  pres- 
ent in  its  centre,  —  that  soul  contains  a  thousand  others : 
those  which,  being  with  God,  are  with  it.  Abandoning 
solitary  and  abstract  reflection  to  seek  God,  it  has  found 
him ;  and  in  recovering  God,  has  recovered  mankind,  its 
life,  its  common-sense,  its  universal  communion. 

When  the  priestly  soul  turns  towards  the  altar,  towards 
God,  it  sees  its  divine  knowledge.  When  it  turns  towards 
the  vast  enclosure,  which  is  itself,  arid  towards  the  other 
souls,  which  commune  with  it  in  God,  it  sees  its  human 
knowledge.  Both  subsist  in  the  holy  sacrifice  with  its 
eternal  solemnity.1 

But  there  are  necessary  initiations  before  we  can  enter 
the  central  enclosure ;  there  are  conditions  to  be  complied 
with  before  we  can  become  a  priest:  there  is  one  which 
includes  them  all. 

This  single  condition  consists  in  taking  up  the  Cross  of 
Jesus  Christ.  This  is  what  I  have  called  the  philosophic 
use  of  the  Saviour's  cross.  To  take  up  the  Cross  of  Christ  is 
to  practise  the  Christian  sacrifice ;  it  is  to  die  to  self  in 
order  to  live  again ;  it  is  to  leave  not  only  the  outward  life 
of  nature  which  we  lived  upon  the  threshold,  but  also  the 
inward  life  of  solitary  reflection,  which  contemplated  the 
images  in  the  structure  of  the  soul.  Having  quitted  the  life 
of  the  world  in  us,  to  quit  also  our  own  life,  to  pass  on  to 
the  life  of  God  himself,  —  this  is  what  Christianity  calls 
"  taking  up  your  cross  and  dying : "  and  it  is  of  such  death 
that  it  is  said :  "  If  the  grain  of  wheat  die  not,  it  remains 
single ;  if  it  die,  it  bears  much  fruit."  Potent  life,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  central  point  where  God  gives  it,  unfolds 

1  This  does  not  mean  that  the  soul  shall  have  only  a  supernatural  knowl- 
edge of  God,  and  a  natural  knowledge  of  his  creatures  and  itself.  It  will  have 
the  natural  knowledge  of  God  and  his  creatures,  when  it  looks  at  his  crea- 
tures and  sees  God  in  them  ;  it  will  have  supernatural  knowledge  of  God  and 
his  creatures  when  it  beholds  God  and  sees  his  creatures  in  him. 


142  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

all  the  riches  of  the  germ  which  desired  to  die  in  God,  and, 
at  the  tip  of  every  twig  or  every  ray  of  that  life,  the  grain 
which  was  dead  and  is  born  again  bears  fruit  like  unto 
itself,  —  an  image  of  the  soul  turned  towards  God,  developed 
and  become  priestly,  which,  forasmuch  as  it  liveth  in  God, 
makes  a  world  of  souls  live  within  it. 

There  is  nothing  superfluous  in  our  description  of  the 
temple.  Search  carefully,  and  you  will  find  all  this  in  the 
history  of  philosophy,  consummated  and  complete. 


CHAPTEK  V. 

THEODICY   OF  SAINT   ANSELM. 

LIKE  the  two  Sums  of  Saint  Thomas,  the  two  philosophic 
works  of  Saint  Anselm  might  be  called  "Intelligence 
Seeking  for  Faith"  " Faith  seeking  for  Intelligence."  l  The 
latter  title  was  at  first  given  by  Saint  Anselm  himself  to  his 
second  work,  the  Proslogium.  As  for  the  first,  the  Mono- 
logium,  the  saintly  doctor  tells  us  how  he  wrote  the  book  for 
his  monks,  who  asked  him  for  purely  philosophic  medita- 
tions, in  which  absolutely  nothing  should  rest  upon  the 
authority  of  Scripture,  but  everything  should  depend  upon 
the  evidence  of  truth  and  the  necessary  conclusions  of  rea- 
son.2 This  is  why,  in  the  Monologium,  he  "  supposes  a  man 
seeking  for  truth  by  his  unaided  reason."3  And,  he  says,  "if 
it  be  a  question  of  most  of  the  truths  which  we  believe  in 
regard  to  God  and  the  creation,  I  think  that  such  a  man, 
who  does  not  know  them  or  does  not  believe  them,  may  still, 
if  he  be  only  of  ordinary  intellect,  convince  himself  of  them 
by  his  unaided  reason."  * 

Yet  this  book  was  at  first  entitled  by  Saint  Anselm, 
"  Meditations  on  the  Eeason  of  Faith"  (Exemplum  medi- 
tandi  de  ratione  Fidei).  The  saintly  doctor  does  not  merely 
demonstrate  the  existence  of  God  and  his  attributes  in  this 
work,  he  goes  farther.  He  proves  the  necessity  of  Faith, 
and  he  goes  so  far  as  to  meditate  on  the  mystery  of  the  Holy 
Trinity.  He  claims  that,  this  doctrine  being  given  and 

1  Intellectus  quaerens  Fidern.     Fides  quserens  Intellectum. 

z  Monol.,  preface.  8  Ibid.  4  Ibid.,  chap.  i. 


144  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

taught  by  revelation,  the  intelligence  can  find  profound  and 
admirable  reasons  for  the  mystery. 

Saint  Anselm  therefore  wrote  the  first  of  his  two  works 
for  the  same  purpose  that  Saint  Thomas  wrote  the  Summa 
PhilosopJiica  ;  that  is,  to  bring  natural  reason  to  bear  against 
those  who  do  not  admit  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  and 
of  revelation. 

And  like  Saint  Thomas,  after  proving  the  existence  of 
God,  Saint  Anselm  too  goes  farther.  He  proves  by  reason 
the  necessity  of  another  light.  From  the  very  fact  that 
reason  on  reaching  a  certain  point  fails,  another  light  must 
needs  intervene.  Like  Saint  Thomas  again,  Saint  Anselm 
gives  his  listeners  a  statement  of  that  which  the  other  light 
reveals  to  us,  and  compels  reason  to  see  nothing  therein  which 
is  opposed  to  it,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  discover  rich  stores  of 
truth.  This,  moreover,  is  the  traditional  course  of  all  Catholic 
schools  of  thought.  All  make  a  radical  distinction  between 
Faith  and  Eeason;  all  maintain  both;  all  affirm  that  un- 
aided reason  can  accomplish  certain  things,  that  it  has  rights 
and  duties :  but  none  stops  at  an  isolated  rational  doctrine ; 
all  regard  healthy  reason,  living  reason,  as  a  power  which 
lives  and  moves  in  the  regret  and  desire  for  another  power, 
under  the  attraction  of  a  higher  truth  :  none  supposes  reason 
apart  from  the  superior  attraction  which  seeks  to  elevate  it. 
All  consider  reason  as  correlative  to  faith,  and  always  see, 
either  intelligence  in  search  of  faith,  or  else  faith  seeking  for 
intelligence.  And  we  say,  with  full  conviction,  that  this 
point  of  view  is  not  merely  theological,  but  it  is  properly 
and  rigidly  philosophical.  To  set  it  aside  is  to  desert  philo- 
sophy and  take  up  sophistry.  Our  future  studies  will  show 
this. 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  ANSELM.  145 


II. 

Now,  how  does  Saint  Anselm  prove  the  existence  of  God  ? 
What  is  his  argument  ?  Is  that  argument  good  or  bad  ?  Is 
it  or  is  it  not  a  sound  chain  of  reasoning  ?  What  is  its  place 
in  logic  ?  It  is  not  for  us  to  answer  this  question,  lest  we 
should  seem  too  fully  to  agree  with  our  own  selves :  we  will 
rather  leave  it  to  the  eminent  writer  who  has  so  skilfully  disr 
cussed  the  philosophic  work  of  Saint  Anselm,  and  who  was 
first,  so  far  as  we  know,  to  understand  fully  the  nature-  of 
his  famous  argument.  "•!  am  convinced,"  says  M.  de  Ke'mit- 
sat,  "  that  the  foes  of  this  argument  will  always  have  an  easy 
victory  if  we  persist  in  turning  it  into  a  syllogism.  The  ma- 
jor must  always  be  such  that  it  carries  the  decision  of:  the 
question.  .  .  .  Therefore  it  is  the  major  that  we  should  con- 
sider. It  is  the  fundamental  idea,  not  mere  reasoning,  tthat 
we  should  bring  to  bear  against  our  foes." l  This  is  the  truth 
in  regard  to  Saint  Anselm's  argument.  In  our  opinion  we 
should  undoubtedly  bring  both  the  fundamental  idea  and 
the  force  of  reasoning  to  bear  against  our  foes ;  but  we  must 
first  recognize  that  this  reasoning  is  not  a  syllogism.  What 
then  is  it  ?  "  It  is  an  example  of  that  boldness  of  induction 
upon  which  ontology  is  based." 2  Yes,  this  reasoning,  taken 
with  its  true  point  of  departure,  is  an  induction,  although,  to 
our  thinking,  there  is  no  boldness  about  it.  It  is  simply  the 
chief  process  of  reason,  that  which  finds  the  majors;  that 
which  in  our  opinion  logic  does  not  bring  sufficiently  to  the 
front ;  that  which  the  best  minds  see  dimly,  which  they  even 
describe,  as  our  author  does  here,  but  which  they  dare  not 
frankly  introduce  into  logic  as  an  exact  process,  intimidated 

1  Saint  Anselm,  p.  533.     We  are  considering  only  the  philosophical  part 
of  M.  de  Remnsat's  book.     Were  we  considering  the  historic  and  religious 
part,  we  should  be  compelled  to  make  certain  reserves. 

2  Page  535. 

10 


146  GUIDE    TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

as  they  are,  despite  the  authority  of  Aristotle  and  all  great 
philosophers,  by  the  time-honored  prejudice  that  reason  has 
but  one  process,  the  syllogistic.1 

Saint  Ansel m's  argument,  taken  as  a  whole,  is,  in  our  opin- 
ion, a  little  masterpiece,  containing  in  its  simple  form  a  great 
wealth  of  ideas :  it  is  the  key  to  ontology,  psychology,  and 
logic.  Let  us  try  to  turn  this  key  and  see  what  it  hides. 

Let  us  see  what  occurs  in  the  soul  which  attains  to  the 
idea  of  God, — that  chief  major  of  all  philosophy. 

In  the  first  place,  every  soul  always  feels  the  attraction  of 
the  Sovereign  Good.  Moreover,  it  sees  all  things,  in  a  certain 
degree,  in  the  light  of  God.  All  desire  for  any  finite  Good 
whatever  implies  some  desire  for  the  Sovereign  Good.  The 
vision  of  any  finite  being  whatsoever  implies  a  certain  degree 
of  vision  of  the  infinite  Being.  The  attraction  of  the  desir- 
able and  the  intelligible,  the  divine  sense,  this  is  always  the 
beginning. 

But  this  sense  and  this  vision  of  God  which  is  given  us,  or 
at  least  offered  us  by  everything  desired  or  known,  is  implicit. 
The  soul  sees  as  if  it  did  not  see ;  it  feels  as  if  it  did  not  feel ; 
it  has  eyes  and  sees  not,  senses  and  feels  not.  Why  ?  Be- 
cause there  is  an  obstacle,  a  double  obstacle,  —  the  obstacle 
which  results  from  the  necessary  limitations  of  the  finite, 

1  Re-read  from  this  point  of  view  the  last  chapter  of  De  Remusat's  book. 
In  those  remarkable  pages,  full  of  good  sense,  penetration,  elevation,  ingenious 
and  truthful  insight,  the  writer  seems  to  consider  in  turn,  from  without,  all 
the  phases  of  a  leading  idea  of  which  he  never  gives  a  complete  description, 
and  which  he  develops  with  some  hesitation.  What  would  be  the  living  bond, 
the  precise  unity,  the  solid  axis  of  all  this  chapter  ?  It  would  be  this  propo- 
sition, understood  as  we  understand  and  set  it  forth  in  this  work:  "There  is 
in  the  human  mind,  besides  syllogism,  another  process  quite  as  exact,  which 
leads  up  from  effects  to  causes,  and  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite."  But  what 
is  there  to  prove  clearly  that  this  process  is  an  exact  one  ?  This.  This  pro- 
cess is  applicable  and  applied  to  geometry,  whose  mainstay  it  is..  For  several 
years  back  this  important  observation  has  been  made,  both  in  France  and  Ger- 
many. Little  by  little,  those  who  devote  themselves  to  philosophy  will  pay 
heed  to  it. 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  ANSELM.  147 

and,  besides,  the  sickly  obstacle  of  a  guilty  and  debased  life. 
"  For  the  sense  of  my  soul,"  says  Saint  Anselm,  "  has  become 
hardened,  and,  as  it  were,  stupefied  by  the  ancient  languor  of 
sin." l  In  a  sickly  soul  there  must  first  be  a  certain  moral 
condition,  a  sacrifice  of  evil  as  an  obstacle,  and,  moreover, 
another  sacrifice  in  humility,  which  is  the  sight  of  and  regret 
at  the  narrow  confines  of  finite  nature.  There  must  be  this 
double  sacrifice  before  the  divine  sense  can  become  explicit 
in  us.  But,  moreover,  we  must  have  recourse  to  reason,  to 
make  up  for  the  degradation  and  obscurity  of  that  inner 
sense.  Reason,  or  rather  ratiocination,  reproduces,  with  toil 
and  complication,  what  the  divine  sense,  were  it  perfectly 
active,  would  give  us  at  once. 

Reason,  therefore,  makes  it  clear  to  us  that  the  desire  for  a 
limited  good  is  only  the  beginning  of  the  desire  for  a  sover- 
eign good,  and  that  the  sight  of  finite  beings  is  only  the 
beginning  of  the  sight  of  the  Being  which  is  infinite.  Why  ? 
Because  my  reason  cannot  conceive  of  a  limited  good  with- 
out conceiving  a  greater  one,  and  a  greater  yet,  and  thus 
it  speeds  until  it  reaches  a  term  which  it  attains  at  a  single 
bound,  and  where  it  necessarily  pauses ;  namely,  the  idea  of 
a  being  such  that  none  greater  can  be  conceived?  of  a  first, 
supreme  and  absolute  Being,  upon  whom  all  being  neces- 
sarily rests,  as  my  thought  rests  and  pauses  in  him  alone. 
But  this  simple  ideal  postulate  once  established,  this  sim- 
ple name  of  a  Being  such  that  none  greater  can  be  con- 
ceived, being  merely  mentally  expressed,  does  not  the  mind 
clearly  recognize  that  which  it  saw  implicitly,  and  does 
not  the  inner  sense  of  the  soul  support  that  light  with  all 
the  living  force  which  is  within  it  ?  Does  not  the  soul 

1  Proslog.,  cap.  xvii. 

2  Id  quo  majus  cogitari  nequit  (Contra  insipientem,  cap.  viii.). 
Invenisti  eum  esse  quiddam  summum  omnium,  quo  nihil  melius  cogitari 

potest  (Prosl.,  cap.  xiv.). 


148  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

instantly  believe  in  the  actual  existence  of  the  Being  such 
that  none  greater  can  be  conceived  ? 

Here,  then,  are  two  moments,  —  the  one  which,  starting 
with  the  desire  or  the  sight  of  limited  good,  conceives  the 
name  and  formula  of  the  Being  such  that  none  greater  can 
be  conceived,  that  is  to  say,  simply  Being ;  and  the  other 
which  instantly  recognizes  under  this  single  name,  actual 
and  real  existence,  as  being  necessarily  contained  therein, 
since  we  cannot  say :  Being  is  not. 

If  we  ask  Saint  Anselm  how  we  arrive  at  this  idea  of  the 
Sovereign  Good,  he  replies  that  we  arrive  at  it  by  the  sight  of 
limited  good  (de  minoribus  bonis  ad  major  a  conscendendo). 
We  pass  from  the  idea  of  a  Good  such  that  a  greater  one  can 
be  conceived  (ex  Us  quibus  majus  cogitari  valet,  CONJICERE 
id  quo  majus  cogitari  nequit),  that  is  to  say,  from  the  idea 
of  finite  good  (quod  initium  et  finem  habet)  we  rise  to  the 
idea  of  infinite  good  (quod  nee  finem  habet  nee  initium). 
All  lower  good,  in  so  far  as  good,  has  some  likeness  to  the 
Sovereign  Good  (omne  minus  bonum  intantum  est  simile 
majori  bono  inquantum  est  bonum).  There  is,  therefore,  a 
point  of  support  to  aid  us  in  arriving  at  the  idea  of  the  infinite 
(est  igitur  unde  possit  conjici  quod  majus  cogitari  nequeat). 
Eeason  reveals  this  to  every  rational  mind  (cuilibet  rationali 
menti).  But  if  any  Christian  deny  it,  continues  our  holy 
doctor,  we  must  remind  him  of  the  words  of  Saint  Paul : 
"  The  invisible  perfections  of  God  are  visible  in  the  created 
world."1 

This  is  the  real  basis  of  St.  Anselm's  argument,  as  the 
eminent  writer  whom  we  have  quoted,  very  truly  remarks. 
The  argument  is  not  an  empty  one,  as  is  so  constantly  re- 
peated, as  Leibnitz  and  Kant  believed,  —  Leibnitz,  who  labors 
to  provide  it  with  a  point  of  support,  and  Kant,  who  strives 
to  destroy  the  whole  argument.  Would  that  they  had  un- 
derstood Saint  Anselm ! 

1  Contra  insipientem,  cap.  viil 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  ANSELM.  149 

In  general,  much  trouble  might  be  saved  if,  in  studying 
the  human  mind,  great  men  were  only  considered  in  their 
totality.  By  a  comparative  study  of  their  various  works,  we 
should  arrive  at  the  living  idea  which  filled  their  mind,  at 
the  object  which  they  saw.  Then,  above  all  errors  of  tex*, 
distractions  of  rnind,  and  padding  between  patches  of  light, 
we  should  see  clearly  the  general  form  of  their  thought,  and 
recover  that  phase  of  the  immutable  truth  which  their  genius 
perceived.  Then  we  should  comprehend  the  harmony  of 
great  minds  and  how  —  always  excluding  the  sophists  who 
gaze  into  darkness,  and  the  fools  who  speak  without  look- 
ing —  all  minds  which  see,  supplement  and  sustain,  instead 
of  contradicting,  each  the  other. 

III. 

Thus,  according  to  Saint  Anselm,  the  sight  of  finite  beings 
and  the  desire  for  transient  goods,  leads  us  to  the  idea  of 
and  desire  for  the  Supreme  Good  and  the  infinite  Being. 
But,  once  more,  how  and  why  does  this  idea  of  the  Supreme 
Good  and  the  infinite  Being  imply  the  actual  and  real  exis- 
tence of  that  Being  whom  the  mind  conceives  ?  This  must 
be  fully  understood,  for  this  is  the  kernel  of  the  argument. 
Here  is  the  plain  and  simple  answer.  It  is  because  an  idea, 
—  an  idea  properly  so  called,  is  a  particular  view  of  the  ob- 
ject. Modern  pantheists  assert  that  the  idea  is  the  object. 
Those  who  have  no  philosophy,  on  the  contrary,  believe  that 
an  idea  can  have  no  object.  The  truth  is  midway.  "  We 
do  not  perceive  nothing,"  Malebranche  constantly  reiterates. 
There  can  be  no  idea  without  an  object ;  but  no  idea  in  man 
is  his  object.  The  idea  is  a  particular  view  of  the  object.  In 
God  alone  is  the  idea  identical  with  its  object.  But  what  is 
the  idea,  properly  so  called?  It  is  neither  the  sensation 
nor  the  image  of  it  which  remains  in  the  memory.  The  idea 


150  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

has  reference  only  to  the  universal,  the  permanent,  the  true  in 
itself,  the  essential ;  it  is  therefore  a  particular  view  of  God. 
But  the  sight  of  a  thing  implies  its  existence.  It  is  thus, 
Saint  Ansel  m  says,  I  have  the  idea  of  a  Being  such  that 
none  greater  can  be  conceived,  that  is,  of  an  infinite  Being ; 
therefore  that  infinite  Being  exists ;  for  you  see  him,  in  a 
certain  sense,  so  soon  as  you  think  of  him.  For  if  he  did 
not  exist,  he  would  not  be  such  that  none  greater  could  be 
conceived.  Far  from  being  infinite,  he  would  be  nought. 
If  you  could  conceive  that  being,  such  that  none  greater  can 
be  conceived,  does  not  exist,  you  would  simultaneously  con- 
ceive the  truth  of  two  contradictory  terms. 

Now,  there  is  a  singular  syllogistic  form,  which  shows  this 
contradiction,  and  it  is  the  argument  of  Saint  Anselm. 

I  have  the  idea  of  a  being  such  that  none  greater  can  be 
conceived. 

But  if  this  being  did  not  exist,  he  would  not  be  greater 
than  any  that  can  be  conceived. 

Therefore  it  is  a  contradiction  to  affirm  that  the  Being 
such  that  none  greater  can  be  conceived  does  not  exist. 

This  singular  argument  proves  the  existence  of  God  under 
a  mathematical  form  and  with  mathematical  precision. 
For  it  starts  with  a  notion  which  exists  in  the  mind,  like 
that  of  the  triangle,  and  deduces  from  this  notion  that  of 
necessary  existence,  as  from  that  of  the  triangle  we  deduce 
the  necessary  properties  of  the  triangle.  And  yet  it  does 
not  end  in  an  ideal,  abstract  God,  but  in  a  real  God.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  argument  is  at  the  same,  time 
a  priori  and  a  posteriori.  It  proves  that  God  is  because  he 
must  be,  and  also  because  we  see  his  existence.  This  argu- 
ment holds  good  only  of  God,  for  the  very  reason  that  God 
is  the  only  necessary  Being.  Outside  of  God  the  ideal  and 
the  real  are  separate.  In  him  real  and  ideal  are  identical. 
And  this  is  what  Aristotle  seems  to  show  us  when,  speaking 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  ANSELM.  151 

of  the  double  series  of  the  desirable  and  the  intelligible, 
he  says  that  the  first  desirable  and  the  first  intelligible  are 
identical.1 

But  let  us  see  more  explicitly  by  what  process  reason 
rises  from  created  things  to  God. 

Since  nothing  exist's  or  subsists  save  through  the  presence 
of  the  creative  and  preservative  Being,2  we  can  understand 
how,  in  seeing  the  created  world,  we  must,  according  to 
Saint  Paul,  see  something  of  the  Creator.  More  yet,  —  all 
that  we  see,  we  see  by  the  light  of  God  (quidquid  video,  per 
illam  video).3  Lastly,  the  soul  is  a  mirror  in  which  God  is 
seen.4 

But  if  I  see  in  all  things  both  the  creature  and  the  light 
of  God,  —  if  I  see  at  once,  in  some  measure,  the  absolute 
perfection  of  God  and  the  relative  qualities  of  his  creatures, 
—  I  must  sepaiate,  in  all  my  thoughts  and  sensations,  those 
two  things  which  are  so  absolutely  different ;  I  must  dis- 
tinguish that  which  shows  me  God,  and  that  which  shows 
me  his  creatures.  What  can  I  affirm  of  God  ?  Of  all  that 
I  can  affirm  of  created  things,  what  is  there  which  befits 
the  wonderful  nature  of  God  ? 5  I  am  amazed  if  among  the 
words  applicable  to  beings  created  out  of  nothing  I  find  any 
which  can  be  worthily  applied  to  the  creative  substance 
of  all.  Let  us  see,  however,  what  reason  will  tell  us  on 
this  point. 

Here  comes  in  the  rational  process  to  which  we  have 
already  referred,  and  to  which  we  shall  have  frequent  occa- 
sion to  refer :  we  must  efface  bounds  and  limits.  We  must 
efface,  as  Descartes  says,  all  that  partakes  of  imperfection 
and  nothingness.  As  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  the  su- 
preme substance  is  something  the  non-existence  of  which 

1  Metaph.,  lib.  ii.  cap.  vii.  *  Monol.,  cap.  Ixvii. 

2  Monol.,  cap.  xiii.  5  Ibid.,  xiii. 
*  Prosl.,  cap.  xvi. 


152  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

would  be,  in  any  sense  whatsoever,  better  than  existence ; 
so,  too,  it  must  necessarily  be  all  whose  existence  is  bet- 
ter than  non-existence :  for  it  alone  is  the  Sovereign 
Good.  We  must  therefore  suppress  every  attribute  of  the 
supreme  essence  which  is  less  good  than  its  negation,  just 
as  we  must  affirm  its  every  attribute  which  is  better  than 
its  negation.1  Therefore  we  should  affirm  its  life,  wisdom, 
beauty,  goodness,  omnipotence,  beatitude,  eternity,  and  every 
other  attribute  which  may  be  always  and  in  every  case 
better  than  its  negation.  Now,  this  logical  choice,  almost 
unintelligible  in  its  theoretical  statement,  is  practised  spon- 
taneously by  every  pure  and  religious  soul,  at  every  instant 
of  life. 

It  is  accordingly  by  considering  the  works  of  God,  but 
above  all  by  viewing  itself,  that  the  soul  sees  God,  or  at 
least  his  image  or  reflection.2  "  For,"  says  our  Doctor,  "  it  is 
evident  that  we  cannot  see  in  ourselves  that  supreme  nature, 
but  can  only  see  it  through  an  intermediary ;  it  is  cer- 
tain that  that  which  can  best  raise  us  to  a  knowledge 
thereof  is  the  sight  of  the  created  being  most  like  it.  ... 
So  that  the  rational  soul  which,  on  the  one  hand,  can  alone 
among  created  beings  rise  to  the  search  after  God,  is  also,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  very  object  in  which  it  may  find  traces 
of  that  which  it  seeks." 

"  We  may  therefore  say  of  the  soul,  with  perfect  truth, 
that  it  is  to  itself  a  mirror  wherein  it  sees  the  image  of  him 
whom  it  cannot  behold  face  to  face."  3 

Keason,  adds  Saint  Anselm,  transfers  to  God  the  attri- 
butes which  it  finds  in  the  soul,  but  it  does  not  transfer 
them  as  they  are.  It  speaks  of  them  in  the  same  terms,  but 
those  terms  have  two  meanings :  one  meaning  relating  to  the 
creature,  another  meaning  relating  to  God  ;  and  the  meaning 
relating  to  the  creature,  that  petty  meaning  (tenuem  signifi- 

1  Monol.,  cap.  xv.  2  Ibid.  3  Ibid.,  cap.  Ixvii. 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  ANSELM.  153 

cationem),1  is  only  the  image,  and,  as  it  were  the  enigma,  of 
their  meaning  in  God. 

By  summing  up  the  foregoing,  we  see  how  complete  Saint 
Anselm's  idea  was.  Nothing  is  wanting :  the  divine  sense, 
the  attraction  of  the  desirable  and  the  intelligible ;  the  ob- 
stacle to  that  attraction ;  the  state  of  degradation  of  the 
divine  sense  in  the  soul ;  the  need  for  moral  preparation, 
for  cure,  in  order  that  the  divine  sense,  God's  image  in  us, 
which  includes  the  memory  of  God,  and  which  leads  to  the 
knowledge  and  love  of  God,  may  be  in  some  measure  devel- 
oped ;  the  effort  of  the  thought  and  will  to  develop  that 
sense  and  derive  light  and  love  from  it ;  the  external  point 
of  departure  of  this  task  of  reason,  in  the  sight  of  finite 
beings,  limited  goods  ;  the  flight  of  reason  from  that  which 
is  limited  to  the  Being  which  is  without  limitations;  the 
crossing  of  the  gulf  between  the  world  and  God ;  the  scien- 
tific operation  which  divides  that  which  befits  the  Infinite 
and  that  which  could  never  befit  him;  the  fundamental 
process  which  finds  the  truth  ;  the  syllogism  which  more 
explicitly  reveals  the  truth  found,  —  we  encounter  all  this  at 
one  and  the  same  time  in  the  thought  of  the  holy  Doctor. 


IV. 

It  remains  to  determine  what  sort  of  knowledge  Saint 
Anselm  believed  he  should  acquire  by  this  exercise  of  the 
reason.  He  tells  us,  in  the  admirable  summary  which  con- 
cludes his  philosophical  work  from  which  we  quote,  — 

"  Hast  thou  found,  my  soul,  all  that  thou  hast  sought  1  Thou 
hast  sought  God.  Thou  hast  found  that  God  is  the  Being  such 
that  none  greater  can  be  conceived  :  that  he  is  life  itself,  light, 
wisdom,  goodness,  everlasting  beatitude,  blessed  eternity ;  that  he 
is  all  this,  everywhere  and  always.  For  if  thou  hast  not  found 

1  Monol.,  cap.  Ixv. 


154  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

God,  how  canst  thou  say  that  he  is  all  which  thou  hast  understood 
with  such  complete  certainty,  such  absolute  truth  1  But  if  thou 
hast  found  him,  why  doth  not  thy  heart  feel  the  great  God  whom 
thou  hast  found  ?  Why,  0  God,  why  doth  my  soul  not  feel  thee, 
if  my  soul  possesseth  thee  ]  Can  it  be  that  it  hath  not  found 
him  whom  it  hath  recognized  as  light  and  truth]  How  hath  it 
understood  this,  if  it  be  not  by  seeing  thy  light  and  thy  truth  1 
Can  it  understand  aught  of  thee,  save  through  thy  light  and 
truth  1  If  it  hath  seen  light  and  truth,  it  hath  seen  thee.  If  it 
hath  not  seen  thee,  it  hath  not  seen  light  and  truth.  But  per- 
haps what  it  hath  seen  is  indeed  light  and  truth,  although  it  hath 
not  yet  seen  thee  thyself.  It  hath  seen  thee  in  a  certain  fashion, 
but  it  hath  not  seen  thee  as  thou  art  (vidit  te  aliquatenus,  sed  non 
vidit  sicut  es).1  My  God,  my  Creator,  my  Regenerator,  tell  my 
soul,  estranged  from  thee  though  it  be,  what  thou  art,  above  and 
beyond  what  it  hath  seen,  to  the  end  that  it  may  one  day  learn  to 
see  thee  purely. 

"  Verily,  Lord,  that  light  wherein  thou  dwellest  is  an  inacces- 
sible light,  and  nought  can  penetrate  it,  so  far  as  to  see  thee  thy- 
self. I  therefore  do  not  see  it,  —  it  is  far  beyond  me  ;  there  is  no 
proportion  between  it  and  me ;  and  yet  by  means  of  it  I  see  all  that 
I  see  :  even  as  my  feeble  sight  sees  by  the  light  of  the  sun  all  that 
it  sees,  although  it  cannot  gaze  at  that  light  in  the  sun  itself." 

Thus  this  knowledge  of  God,  acquired  by  reason,  is  a  vision 
which  is  still  problematic,  —  a  vision  in  a  mirror.  Keason 
entereth  not  into  that  inaccessible  light  which  shows  God 
directly  and  immediately.  But  if  that  light  be  inaccessible 
to  the  forces  of  nature,  man  may  be  raised  to  it  by  the  favor 
of  God  (quce  inacessibilis  est  viribus  nostris,  sed  acceditur 
ad  earn  munembus  divinis)?  Saint  Anselm,  therefore,  distin- 
guishes, as  do  all  the  Fathers,  between  the  two  modes,  natural 
and  supernatural,  indirect  and  direct,  in  which  the  soul  may 
see  the  light  of  God. 

It  is  thus  that  he  distinguishes  between  knowledge  which 
is  purely  human  and  knowledge  which  is  purely  divine.  But 

1  Prosl.,  xiv.  a  Homil.,  iv.  in  Ev.  sec.  MattL 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  ANSELM.  155 

in  practice  he  clings  particularly  to  that  knowledge,  at  once 
human  and  divine,  which  is  the  fruit  of  reason  working  in 
the  light  of  revelation.  This  is  expressed  by  those  beautiful 
words  so  often  quoted,  which  are,  as  it  were,  the  motto  of  all 
Saint  Anselm's  works  :  — 

"  I  long  to  possess,  in  so  far  as  possible,  the  intelligence  of  the 
truth,  0  my  God,  of  that  truth  which  my  heart  loves  and  believes. 
I  seek  not  intelligence  to  the  end  that  I  may  believe,  but  I  would 
believe  to  the  end  that  I  may  have  intelligence.  I  believe  things 
which  I  could  never  comprehend  if  I  did  not  first  believe  them.1  .  .  . 
Thanks  to  thee,  0  my  God,  that  which  at  first  I  believed  by  thy 
grace  I  now  see  by  thy  light ;  so  that  if  I  should  cease  to  believe 
that  thou  art,  0  my  God,  I  could  not  cease  to  know  it."  2 

So  that,  according  to  Saint  Anslem,  truths  at  first  received 
through  faith  become  so  luminous  that  we  can  no  longer  help 
seeing  them,  even  independently  of  faith.  Faith,  therefore, 
is  the  root  of  knowledge.  "  But  if  the  true  order  exacts  that 
Christian  mysteries  be  received  through  faith,  before  reason 
undertakes  to  discuss  them,  so  too  we  should  be,  it  seems  to 
me,  guilty  of  negligence  if,  when  we  are  established,  we  did 
not  seek  eagerly  for  the  intellectual  possession  of  that  which 
we  believe."3 

And,  in  our  opinion,  this  is  incomparably  the  best  way  to 
arrive  at  philosophical  discoveries.  The  example  of  Saint 
Anselm  himself  is  a  proof  of  this.  Saint  Anselm,  in  fact,  is 
the  stimulator  of  the  great  Scholastic  movement,  which  is  of 
all  historic  movements  that  which  has  done  most  to  develop 
human  reason.  Moreover,  Saint  Anselm  is  perhaps  the  first 
of  all  the  philosophers  to  handle  methodically  the  idea  of  the 
infinite,  that  lever  of  science.  If  ideas  required  a  genealogy, 
and  if  every  clear-sighted  mind  did  not  perceive  them  in 
the  light  of  God,  there  would  be  strong  reasons  for  thinking 

1  Prosl.,  cap.  i.  8  Cur  Deus  homo.,  lib.  i.  cap.  ii. 

2  Ibid.,  cap.  iv. 


156  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

that  Saint  Anslern's  metaphysics  form,  in  the  development 
of  the  human  mind,  the  first  perceptible  germ  from  which 
the  invention  of  the  infinitesimal  calculus  was  afterwards  to 
be  developed.  Saint  Anselm's  great  idea,  the  formula  which 
constantly  recurs  in  his  writings,  is  this :  "  The  being  such 
that  none  greater  can  be  conceived."  Now,  this  formula  is 
not  merely  synonymous  with  the  word  infinite,  it  is  a  defini- 
tion of  it.  The  infinite  is  a  word  often  used,  which  will  often 
be  used  again,  in  a  vague  or  false  way,  t.o  the  point  of  con- 
founding it,  as  did  the  ancients,  with  the  indefinite.  Now, 
Saint  Anselm's  formula  is  the  proper  definition  of  the  infinite, 
such  as  our  reason  can  conceive  it.  The  indefinite,  in  fact, 
is  such  that  we  can  always  conceive  of  something  beyond  it. 
The  infinite,  on  the  contrary,  the  infinite  alone,  is  such  that 
we  can  conceive  of  nothing  beyond  it.  It  is  that  absolute 
limit  of  which  Leibnitz  speaks,  which  is  above  and  outside 
all  size,  which  increasing  size  cannot  attain,  and  which  itself 
cannot  increase.  Now,  faith,  completely  reasoned  out,  become 
evident,  faith  in  the  existence  of  the  real  and  actual  infi- 
nite, is  the  highest  of  all  ideas,  and  the  strongest  of  all  scien- 
tific motives.  It  is,  as  it  were,  a  type  of  truth,  a  general 
method  of  discoveries.  This  idea  teaches  us,  in  all  things, 
to  push  reason  to  its  farthest  limit,  to  refer  every  contingent 
notion  to  its  eternal  exemplar,  to  seek  out  what  may  be  the 
divine  idea  to  which  every  object  corresponds,  as  being  its 
transitory  and  partial  image ;  in  fine,  to  study  his  creatures 
in  God,  as  when  geometry  searches  in  the  infinite  for  the 
laws  and  secret  nature  of  finite  forms. 

The  Church  pays  the  following  amazing  testimony  to  Saint 
Anselm's  philosophic  work :  "  His  writings  show  plainly  that 
he  derived  from  Heaven  the  form  of  doctrine  by  which  he 
defends  our  faith,  and  which  has  been  followed  since  by  all 
theologians  who  apply  the  Scholastic  method  to  sacred 

things."  1 

1  Brev.  Rom.,  April  21,  lect.  vi. 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  ANSELM.  157 

What  is  this  form  of  doctrine  ?  It  is  plainly  that  great 
Christian  method,  that  complete  process  of  thought  which 
seeks  Faith  through  Intelligence,  and  Intelligence  through 
Faith.  Saint  Anselm,  more  exactly  than  the  Fathers,  gives 
his  law  to  the  school,  and  founds  the  admirable  theologic  and 
philosophic  instruction  in  which  the  two  principles  of  light, 
reason  and  faith,  always  radically  distinct,  remain  profoundly 
united.  And  this  is  that  which  was  derived  from  Heaven, 
and  which  earth  needs,  —  as,  I  hope,  may  be  understood  in 
proportion  as  philosophy  revives. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THEODICY  OF   SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS. 
I. 

WE  may  say  that  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  is  to  Saint  Au- 
gustine what  Aristotle  is  to  Plato.  We  may  also  say 
that  Saint  Thomas  includes  Augustine,  Aristotle,  and  Plato. 

Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  as  a  philosopher,  includes  all  the 
substance  of  his  three  great  predecessors.  But  his  mind  is 
that  of  Aristotle.  There  are  two  kinds  of  mind,  correspond- 
ing to  the  two  processes  of  reasoning.  Every  mind  employs 
both  processes ;  but  in  almost  all,  one  of  the  two  prevails. 
Some  move  particularly  by  means  of  syllogistic  identity,  oth- 
ers by  means  of  dialectic  transcendence.  Plato  and  Saint 
Augustine  proceed  mainly  by  means  of  transcendence,  Aris- 
totle and  Saint  Thomas  by  means  of  identity. 

It  is  clear  that  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  must  have  deduced 
and  wrought  chiefly  by  syllogisms,  since  the  majors  were  given 
him.  That  which  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Saint  Augustine  found 
in  philosophy,  he  had  not  to  search  out.  Certainly  he  veri- 
fied their  postulates  with  more  scrupulousness,  profundity,  and 
precision  than  any  other  man  without  exception,  But  still, 
his  work  was  chiefly  one  of  deduction,  and  he  had  reached 
that  point  of  intellectual  effort  to  which  Plato  alludes  when, 
after  describing  one  of  the  two  processes  of  reasoning,  that 
which,  from  the  point  of  departure  taken  as  primary  cause, 
deduces  its  consequences  by  syllogisms,  he  passes  to  the  other 
process,  and  says  that  reason,  by  its  dialectic  impulse,  seizes 
the  primary  cause,  not  contained  in  the  point  of  departure, 
then,  thus  possessing  the  idea  and  that  which  is  dependent 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          159 

upon  it,  it  descends  from  idea  to  idea  towards  all  the  conse- 
quences of  the  chief  idea.  Such  is  the  most  customary  field 
of  Saint  Thomas's  syllogisms.  It  is  not  only  syllogism  ap- 
plied to  the  postulates  of  the  senses  and  to  abstract  notions, 
but  it  is  chiefly  syllogism  applied  to  ideas,  which  is  Plato's 
distinguishing  feature.  This  has  never  been  sufficiently 
noticed.  An  eminent  mind,  a  partisan  of  Plato  and  Saint 
Augustine,  who  did  not  fear  to  call  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas 
a  destroyer  of  Philosophy,  was  led  to  this  error  from  lack  of 
grasping  the  above  distinction.  There  is  here,  according  to 
Plato,  all  the  difference  that  there  is  between  the  two  regions 
of  the  world  of  intelligence,  and,  according  to  Saint  Augus- 
tine, all  the  difference  that  there  is  between  heaven  and  earth. 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  reasons  in  heaven,  not  on  earth ;  he 
deduces,  but  he  deduces  from  heaven,  not  from  earth. 

So  much  for  the  syllogistic  side  of  the  argument.  But 
every  mind  necessarily  makes  use  of  both  processes  of 
reasoning.  Aristotle  practises,  and,  up  to  a  certain  point, 
describes  both.  Now,  we  may  assert  that  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas  uses,  far  more  than  Aristotle,  the  chief  process  of 
Philosophy.  Saint  Thomas,  moreover,  did  not  misunder- 
stand Saint  Augustine,  as  Aristotle  misunderstood  Plato,  by 
rejecting  his  dialectic ;  he  set  aside  nothing  in  his  glorious 
predecessor ;  and  that  process  of  rational  ascent,  advancing 
from  the  sensation  to  God,  so  well  described  by  Saint 
Augustine,  is  practised,  mentioned,  and  also  described  by 
Saint  Thomas.1 

There  is  in  philosophy,  in  regard  to  the  method,  the  same 
difference  between  Aristotle  and  Plato  that  there  is  between 
Lagrange  and  Leibnitz.  Lagrange  is  blind  and  unjust  in 
respect  to  Leibnitz ;  he  does  not  admit  his  principles ;  he  is 

1  Alia  rationalis  scientia  dialedica  quse  ordinatur  ad  acquisitionem  inven- 
tivam,  et  alia  scientia  demonstrativa  quse  est  veritatis  deterrainativa.  2a,  2" ,  q. 
51,  2,  ad  3m. 


160  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

willing  to  retain  merely  the  results,  which  he  claims  to  reach 
strictly  by  a  better  method.  "  He  desires  to  base  the  entire 
differential  calculus  upon  simple  algebraic  identities,"  em- 
ploying for  this  purpose  "  one  of  those  metaphysical  paralo- 
gisms into  which  the  greatest  masters  are  liable  to  fall," l 
and  depending,  to  attain  this  end,  upon  a  general  principle, 
which  is  false  in  certain  cases.2  Instead  of  this,  there  is, 
between  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Saint  Augustine,  only 
the  difference  that  there  is  between  Newton  and  Leibnitz, 
minus  the  dispute.  Newton  made  the  same  discovery  as 
Leibnitz,  but  without  expressing  the  idea  of  infinite  small - 
ness ;  his  idea  is  less  distinct  than  that  of  Leibnitz,  but  it 
is  the  same,  and  he  recognized  it.  Now,  if  Saint  Thomas, 
upon  this  point,  obscures  Saint  Augustine,  it  is  in  a  yet  more 
transparent  manner,  as  we  shall  see. 


II. 

Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  in  the  question  of  the  existence  of 
God  and  its  proof,  starts  with  a  main  idea  from  which  he 
never  deviates  ;  it  is  that  of  Saint  Paul :  the  invisible  God 
is  seen  in  his  visible  effects.  We  see  that  this  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  proving  of  the  infinite  through  the  finite. 

Henceforth,  if  any  one  object  that  the  existence  of  God 
cannot  be  proved,  because  the  proposition  God  is,  is  an  iden- 
tical and  self-evident  proposition,  Saint  Thomas  confesses 
that  it  would  be  so  to  those  who  might  know  God  in  him- 
self, but  not  to  us,  who  only  know  him  through  his  works. 

If  any  one  object  that  the  existence  of  God  is  a  truth 
superior  to  reason,  and  that  faith  alone  can  attain  to  it,  he 

1  Cournot,  Elementary  Treatise  on  the  Theory  of  Functions,  vol.  i.  p.  ix, 
French  edition. 

2  This  was  proved  by  M.  Lefebure  de  Fourcy  in  his  lectures  on  the  infini- 
tesimal calculus. 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          161 

denies  it,  and  declares  that  reason  is  capable  of  perceiving 
and  proving  God  through  his  works. 

These  two  objections  removed,  Saint  Thomas  proceeds  to 
prove  the  existence  of  God  by  his  works. 

We  quote  the  whole  of  this  argument.  It  is  the  second 
question  in  the  THEOLOGICAL  SUM,  which  we  translate  lit- 
erally, word  for  word.  The  reader  will  thus  get  an  idea  of 
one  chapter  in  that  famous  SUM,  —  that  abridgment  of  Theol- 
ogy written  for  beginners,  as  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  says. 

"QUESTION   II.  — DOES  GOD  EXIST? 

"  This  question  includes  three  :  1.  Is  the  existence  of  God  self- 
evident?  2.  Is  it  capable  of  proof1?  3.  Does  God  exist? 

"ART.  I.     Is  the  existence  of  God  self-evident? 

"  Those  who  hold  that  it  is,  proceed  thus  :  — 

"  1.  It  is  self-evident  that  God  exists.  For  we  call  self-evident 
that  which  we  know  necessarily  and  naturally,  like  first  principles. 
But,  as  John  of  Damascus  asserts,  every  mind  knows  naturally 
that  God  exists.  Therefore  the  existence  of  God  is  self-evident. 

"  2.  Moreover,  all  that  is  instantly  certain,  so  soon  as  we  know 
the  meaning  of  the  terms,  is  self-evident  :  such  is  the  evidence 
which  characterizes,  according  to  Aristotle,  the  first  principles  of 
proof.  When  you  know  what  the  whole  is,  and  what  the  part  is, 
you  at  once  know,  by  this  very  knowledge,  that  the  whole  is- 
greater  than  the  part.  But  so  soon  as  we  know  the  value  of  the 
word  God,  we  at  once  know  that  God  is.  For  that  name  signifies, 
*  That  which  has  nothing  superior  to  it.'  But  that  which  is  both 
real  and  intelligible  is  superior  to  that  which  is  merely  intelligible. 
Hence,  God  being  intelligible,  since  you  possess  the  idea,  it  fol- 
lows that  he  is  also  real.  Therefore  the  existence  of  God  is  self- 
evident.  [This  is  Saint  Anselm's  proof.] 

"  Moreover,  it  is  self-evident  that  truth  is ;  for  if  you  deny  that 
truth  is,  you  grant  that  it  is  not ;  but  if  truth  is  not,  it  is  true 
that  it  is  not.  Therefore  there  is  something  true.  Therefore 
truth  is.  Now,  truth  is  God  himself.  '  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth, 
and  the  Life,'  says  the  Word.  Therefore  it  is  evident  that  God  is. 

"  On  the  contrary,  we  grant  that  none  can  conceive  the  opposite 

11 


162  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

of  that  which  is  self-evident,  as  Aristotle  declares  in  regard  to  the 
first  principles  of  proof.  Now,  as  a  fact,  we  can  think  the  oppo- 
site of  the  proposition:  'God  is,'  as  we  see  in  the  Scriptures; 
'The  fool  saith  in  his  heart,  There  is  no  God.'  Therefore  the 
existence  of  God  is  not  self-evident. 

"  I  reply  to  all  this  that  a  truth  is  self-evident  in  two  ways  : 
1 .  In  itself  absolutely,  and  not  relatively  to  us.  2.  In  itself,  and 
at  the  same  time  relatively  to  us.  A  proposition  is  self-evident 
when  the  attribute  is  included  in  the  definition  of  the  subject,  as 
follows :  '  Man  is  an  animate  being.'  For  the  idea  of  '  animate 
being '  is  included  in  the  definition  of  l  man.'  If,  therefore,  every 
one  knew  both  the  attribute  and  the  subject  of  a  proposition,  that 
proposition  would  be  self-evident  to  all.  This  is  the  case  with 
axioms  whose  terms  are  words  familiar  to  all,  such  as  '  being,'  '  non- 
being,'  Hhe  whole/  or  'the  part.'  But  if  any  one  is  ignorant  of  either 
subject  or  attribute,  the  proposition,  evident  in  itself,  is  not  so  to 
him.  Thus  it  happens,  says  Boethius,  that  there  are  truths  evident 
in  themselves  to  sages  only,  such  as :  *  That  mind  is  not  subject 
to  space.'  I  say,  therefore,  that  the  proposition,  '  God  is,'  taken 
in  itself,  is  evident,  since  the  attribute  and  the  subject  are  identi- 
cal. For  God  is  his  very  being,  as  we  shall  show.  But  because 
we  do  not  know  what  God  is,  the  proposition  is  not  for  us  directly 
evident,  but  requires  to  be  proved  by  intermediaries  more  familiar 
to  us,  although  in  themselves  less  clear,  —  I  mean  the  sensible 
effects  of  God's  power. 

"This  established,  we  must  reply  to  the  first  objection  :  that  we 
have,  it  is  true,  naturally  within  us,  a  sort  of  confused  and  general 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  God,  since,  in  fact,  God  is  our  sov- 
ereign Good;  since  the  desire  for  the  sovereign  Good  is  natural,  and 
what  we  desire  naturally,  we  also  know  naturally.  But  this  is  not 
exactly  knowing  the  existence  of  God ;  as,  when  I  know  that  some 
one  is  coming,  I  may  not  therefore  know  the  man  who  is  coming, 
although  I  see  him  coming.  And,  indeed,  all  wish  for  perfect  hap- 
piness ;  but  some  believe  that  perfect  happiness  lies  in  wealth, 
others  in  pleasure,  and  so  on. 

"  We  reply  to  the  second  objection  that  those  who  hear  the 
word  God,  may  not  understand  thereby  the  Being  than  whom 
no  higher  can  be  conceived,  since  there  are  some  who  have 
thought  that  God  was  a  body.  But  admitting  that  all  under- 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          163 

stand  by  the  word  'God '  the  Being  than  whom  no  higher  can  be  con- 
ceived, it  does  not  follow  that  we  admit  that  such  a  Being,  although 
he  be  intelligible  (he  is  this,  since  we  think  of  him),  therefore 
exists  in  the  nature  of  things.  And  we  cannot  maintain  that  he 
is  necessarily  real,  unless  we  grant  that  there  is,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  a  being  such  that  no  greater  can  be  conceived.  And  this 
is  precisely  what  those  who  deny  God  do  not  grant. 

"As  for  the  third  objection,  it  is  plain,  in  general,  that  there 
is  something  true ;  but  it  is  not  evident,  relatively  to  us,  that 
there  exists  a  first  truth. 

"ART.  II.  —  Can  we  prove  the  Existence  of  God  ? 

"  Those  who  deny  it,  proceed  thus  :  — 

"  1.  We  cannot  prove  the  existence  of  God,  for  it  is  an  article 
of  faith.  Now,  faith  is  not  capable  of  proof,  for  proof  yields 
knowledge ;  but  faith  refers  to  things  which  are  not  seen,  as  the 
Apostle  says  (Epistle  to  the  Hebrews)  :  therefore,  the  existence 
of  God  is  not  capable  of  proof. 

"  2.  Moreover,  the  middle  term  of  a  demonstration  is  the 
essence  of  the  subject.  But  we  know  of  God,  not  what  he  is,  but 
only  what  he  is  not,  as  John  of  Damascus  says.  Therefore,  we 
cannot  prove  the  existence  of  God. 

"  3.  Moreover,  if  we  could  prove  God,  it  would  only  be  through 
his  effects.  But  his  effects  bear  no  proportion  to  him,  since  he  is 
infinite  and  his  effects  finite,  and  there  is  no  connection  between 
the  finite  and  the  infinite.  A  cause  cannot  be  proved  by  an  effect 
disproportionate  to  that  cause.  Therefore  we  cannot  prove  the 
existence  of  God. 

"  On  the  contrary,  we  cannot  ignore  what  the  Apostle  says  : 
The  invisible  God  is  seen  in  his  visible  effects.  This  would  be 
false,  if  we  could  not  by  his  effects  prove  that  God  is,  for  the  first 
thing  to  be  perceived  of  a  being  is  to  perceive  that  it  is.  • 

"  I  reply  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  proof ,  —  the  one  called  proof 
on  account  of  which  (propter  quid),  which  starts  from  the  cause, 
from  that  which  is  intrinsically  prior  ;  the  other  called  proof 
because  (quia),  which  starts  from  the  effect,  and  is  prior  only 
relatively  to  us.1  When  a  certain  effect  is  clearer  to  us  than 

1  These  are  the  two  proofs  mentioned  by  Plato,  one  of  which  starts  from 
the  principle  and  deduces  its  consequences,  while  the  other  reaches  the  prin- 
ciple by  starting  from  a  postulate  which  does  not  contain  it.  Repub.,  book 
vi.,  close. 


164  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

its  cause,  we  proceed  to  the  knowledge  of  the  cause  by  starting 
from  the  effect.  Now,  every  effect  is  sufficient  proof  that  its 
individual  cause  exists,  when  we  are  more  familiar  with  these 
effects  than  with  their  cause.  The  effect  depending  on  the  cause, 
it  is  certain,  if  the  effect  exists,  that  the  cause  pre-exists.  Thus 
the  existence  of  God,  which  to  us  is  not  self-evident,  is  proved  by 
its  effects  which  we  know. 

"  To  the  first  objection  it  may  be  answered  that  the  existence 
of  God,  and  other  truths  concerning  God  which  may  be  known  to 
us  through  natural  reason,  as  Saint  Paul  says  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  are  not  articles  of  faith,  but  preambles  of  faith.  Faith 
presupposes  reason  and  natural  knowledge,  as  grace  presupposes 
nature,  and  perfection  presupposes  the  perfectible.  Nevertheless, 
nothing  prevents  the  reception  of  that  which  is  intrinsically  capa- 
ble of  proof  and  naturally  capable  of  being  known  as  an  article  of 
faith  by  those  who  do  not  understand  the  proof. 

"We  reply  to  the  second  objection  that  when  we  prove  a  cause 
by  its  effects,  we  cannot  start  with  a  definition  of  the  cause,  but 
must  depend  upon  the  effect ;  and  this  is  especially  true  in  regard 
to  God  ;  because,  to  prove  that  a  thing  is,  we  must  start  with  the 
signification  of  its  name,  and  not  with  its  definition,  —  the  defini- 
tion coming  after  the  proof  of  existence.  Now,  as  we  shall  see, 
the  names  of  God  are  borrowed  from  his  effects  ;  when,  therefore, 
we  prove  God  by  his  effects,  we  may  take  the  meaning  of  one  or 
other  of  his  names  as  our  middle  term. 

"We  reply  to  the  third  objection  :  From  effects  dispropor- 
tionate to  their  cause  we  can  gain  no  complete  knowledge  of  that 
cause,  but  every  effect  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  its  cause  exists. 
Therefore  the  effects  of  God's  power  can  prove  to  us  that  God  is, 
although  they  cannot  acquaint  us  with  all  that  he  is. 

"  ART.  III.  —  Is  there  a  God  ? 

"  Those  who  deny  this,  proceed  thus :  — 

"  It  seems  that  there  is  no  God.  If  one  of  two  opposites 
be  infinite,  the  other  is  not.  But  the  word  God  means  infinite 
good.  Therefore,  if  God  were,  there  would  be  no  evil.  Now, 
actually,  there  is  evil.  Therefore  God  is  not. 

"  2.  Moreover,  that  which  can  be  explained  by  a  few  principles, 
does  not  depend  on  a  greater  number.  Now,  all  that  we  see  in 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.         165 

the  world  may  be  explained  by  two  principles,  on  the  supposition 
that  God  is  not.  All  material  things  may  be  referred  to  a  single 
principle,  —  nature ;  all  spiritual  things  may  be  referred  to  an- 
other principle,  —  reason  and  will.  It  is  unnecessary  to  suppose 
another  principle,  —  God. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  written :   '  I  am  that  I  am.' 

"  I  reply  that  the  existence  of  God  may  be  proved  in  five  ways. 

"  Motion  is  the  first  and  most  manifest. 

"  It  is  an  assured  fact,  and  we  see,  that  there  is  motion  in  the 
world.  Now,  every  object  in  motion  is  moved  by  some  other. 
Nothing  can  be  moved,  if  it  be  not  in  potentiality  relatively  to 
the  movement  imparted  to  it ;  and  nothing  could  move  save  as 
being  in  act,  —  motion  being  only  the  passage  from  potentiality  to 
act.  Clearly,  nothing  can  be  changed  from  potentiality  to  act, 
save  by  that  which  is  in  act.  Just  as  the  fire,  actually  burning, 
makes  the  wood,  which  was  burning  in  potentiality,  actually  burn- 
ing, and  thereby  moves  and  changes  it.  Now,  it  is  impossible  that 
one  and  the  same  thing  should  be  at  once  actual  and  potential  in 
one  and  the  same  respect,  but  only  in  different  respects.  That 
which  is  hot  in  act  is  not  hot  in  potentiality  on  the  same  point, 
but  upon  that  point  cold  in  potentiality.  It  is  therefore  impossi- 
ble that  one  and  the  same  object,  from  one  and  the  same  point 
of  view,  can  be  at  once  moved  and  motor,  —  that  is  to  say,  that  it 
can  move  itself.  Therefore,  all  that  is  in  motion  is  moved  by 
some  other  thing.  Therefore  this  motor,  if  it  be  itself  in  motion, 
is  in  its  turn  moved  by  another,  and  that  other  by  still  another. 
But  there  must  be  a  pause  ;  we  cannot  go  on  thus  to  infinity, 
for  there  would  be  no  prime  motor ;  if  there  were  no  prime  motor, 
there  would  not  be  any  motor,  since  secondary  motors  only  move 
by  the  prime  motor,  as  a  stick  is  only  moved  by  the  hand.  There 
must  therefore  be  a  primary  motor  which  no  other  moves.  Every 
one  understands  that  such  a  motor  is  God. 

"  The  second  proof  is  that  of  the  efficient  cause. 

"  We  find  in  visible  things  a  series  of  efficient  causes,  each  of 
which  produces  the  other ;  but  we  find  nothing,  and  we  can  find 
nothing,  which  is  its  own  efficient  cause,  since  such  a  cause  would 
be  before  being,  which  is  impossible.  Now,  it  is  not  possible  to 
reascend  endlessly  from  cause  to  cause,  for  in  the  sum  total  of  the 
series  of  causes,  the  beginning  is  the  cause  of  the  middle,  the  mid- 


166  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

die  of  the  end,  whatever  may  be  the  number  of  terms.  But  if 
we  remove  the  cause,  we  remove  the  effect.  Therefore  if  there 
were  no  first  efficient  cause  there  would  be  no  middle  or  end  to 
the  series.  But  if  there  were  an  infinite  series  of  efficient  causes, 
there  would  be  no  first  one,  and  therefore  there  would  be  neither 
a  last  effect,  nor  middle  efficient  causes,  which  is  manifestly 
false.  Therefore,  there  must  be  a  first  efficient  cause,  which  all 
call  God. 

"  The  third  proof  is  that  of  the  possible  and  the  necessary. 

"  We  see  beings  who  may  be  or  not  be,  since  there  are  corrup- 
tions and  generations.  Now,  it  cannot  be  that  that  which  is  such 
can  endure  forever,  for  that  which  may  not  be,  in  a  certain  space 
of  time  ceases  to  exist.  If,  therefore,  all  might  not  be,  it  would 
follow  that  there  was  a  time  when  nothing  was.  But  in  that 
case  there  would  still  be  nothing  now,  for  that  which  is  not,  does 
not  begin  to  be,  save  through  that  which  is  already.  If,  therefore, 
nothing  was,  nothing  can  ever  have  begun  to  be ;  therefore  there 
would  be  nothing,  —  which  is  false.  Therefore  all  beings  are  not 
merely  possible,  and  there  is  a  necessary  being.  Now,  that  which 
is  necessary  has  in  itself  or  outside  itself  the  cause  of  its  neces- 
sity. But  there  cannot  be  an  endless  series  of  necessary  beings, 
external  necessities,  any  more  than  there  is  an  endless  series  of 
efficient  causes.  We  must  therefore  establish  the  fact  that  there 
is  something  necessary  itself,  having  no  other  cause  for  its  neces- 
sity, but  being  the  cause  of  all  which  is  necessary.  Now,  the 
being  necessary  in  itself  is  God. 

"  The  fourth  proof  is  that  of  the  degrees  of  perfection. 

"  We  find  more  or  less,  and  degrees  of  goodness,  truth,  nobility, 
and  all  other  qualities  of  things.  But  the  more  and  less  can  only  be 
applied  to  various  beings  variously  approaching  a  sovereign  type  , 
as,  for  example,  warmth  is  that  which  partakes  more  or  less  of 
absolute  heat.  There  is  therefore  also  a  being  who  is  supremely 
good,  supremely  true,  supremely  noble,  and  who  thence  is  the 
Supreme  Being.  For,  as  Aristotle  says,  that  which  is  supremely 
true  is  supremely.  Now  that  which  is  supremely  endowed  with 
all  perfection,  of  whatsoever  kind  it  may  be,  is  the  cause  of  all 
degrees  of  perfection  of  the  same  kind,  as  fire  is  the  cause  of  all 
heat.  There  is,  therefore,  a  being  who  is  the  cause  of  the  being, 
of  the  goodness,  of  the  perfection  of  all  being,  and  that  being  is  God. 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          167 

"  Lastly,  the  fifth  proof  is  drawn  from  the  government  of  the 
world. 

"  We  see  certain  intelligent  beings,  such  as  bodies,  tend  to  an 
end,  since  they  do,  usually  or  always,  and  in  the  same  way,  that 
which  leads  them  to  a  desired  goal.  Therefore  it  is  not  acciden- 
tally, but  rather  in  consequence  of  an  intention,  that  they  attain 
that  end.  But  having  no  knowledge,  they  have  no  individual 
intention,  and  advance  to  their  end  only  as  directed  by  an  intelli- 
gence which  possesses  intention,  as  when  the  arrow  is  directed  by 
the  hunter.  There  is  therefore  an  intelligent  being  who  orders 
nature  and  guides  it  to  its  end.  We  call  this  God. 

"  Let  us  answer  the  first  objection  in  Saint  Augustine's  words. 
God,  being  supremely  good,  would  by  no  means  suffer  the  presence 
of  evil  in  his  work,  if  he  were  not  so  all  powerful  and  all  good 
that  he  can  make  good  proceed  from  evil.  The  infinitude  of 
God's  goodness  endures  if  he  permits  evil  only  in  order  to  produce 
a  greater  good. 

"  To  the  second  objection  we  reply  that  as  nature,  which  acts 
in  that  intention,  advances  towards  its  end  only  through  the 
manifest  intention  of  a  superior  mind,  we  must  refer  to  God,  as 
prime  cause,  all  that  nature  effects.  So,  too,  that  which  acts 
through  intention  should  also  be  referred  to  a  higher  cause  than 
human  reason  or  will,  because  those  two  powers  are  variable  and 
defectible.  Now,  everything  variable,  everything  defectible,  pre- 
supposes a  first  principle  immutable  and  intrinsically  essential, 
as  we  have  just  shown." 

III. 

Throughout  this  little  treatise  by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas 
upon  the  existence  of  God,  in  all  his  proofs  and  arguments 
there  is  one  leading  idea,  —  namely,  the  invisible  God  can  be 
proved  through  his  works.  Now,  this  is  precisely  the  basis 
of  true  demonstration,  that  which  rises  from  the  sight  of 
the  finite  to  the  infinite,  the  proof  which  is  familiar  to  every 
one,  —  to  Plato,  Aristotle,  Saint  Paul,  Saint  Augustine,  all 
thinkers,  to  poets  and  the  people. 

Moreover,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  clearly  distinguishes  be- 


168  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

tween  the  proof  which  moves  from  cause  to  effect,  which 
deduces,  which  derives  a  consequence  from  a  principle  by 
means  of  syllogism,  and  that  which  reascends  from  the 
effect  to  the  cause  not  contained  in  the  effect,  which  advances 
from  finite  effect  to  infinite  cause. 

He  knows  the  objection  to  this  point,  and  presents  it 
vigorously  (Art.  II.,  ad.  3m).  "  We  can  only,"  he  objects, 
"  prove  God  through  his  works.  Now,  his  works  are  wholly 
disproportionate  to  himself,  since  he  is  infinite  and  his  works 
are  finite,  and  there  is  no  proportion  between  finite  and  in- 
finite." He  replies,  "  That  an  effect,  disproportionate  to  its 
cause,  cannot  reveal  its  entire  cause,  but  can  prove  that  it 
exists." 

He  asserts,  by  the  way,  that  those  who  say  that  there  is 
no  God,  do  not  accept  actual  infinity ;  that  is  to  say,  the  being 
so  great  than  none  greater  can  be  conceived  (Art.  L,  ad.  2m). 

He  refutes  Saint  Anselm's  proof,  regarded  as  purely  syllo- 
gistic and  a  priori,  by  the  same  remark  that  there  may  be 
minds  who  deny  actual  infinity,  and  consequently  do  not 
accept  Saint  Anselm's  major. 

Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  therefore  is  perfectly  aware  that 
this  argument,  to  be  complete,  should  be  a  proof  at  the  same 
time  a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  the  proof  of  the  existence  of 
God  being  the  only  one  capable  of  combining  these  two  ex- 
tremes, because  God  is  the  only  being  at  once  ideal  and  real, 
whose  ideality  is  identical  with  reality,  —  which  Saint  Thomas 
expresses  perfectly  in  that  statement,  whose  importance  is 
not  understood :  His  being  is  his  essence  (suum  esse  est  sua 
essentia) ;  that  is  to  say,  his  ideality  and  his  reality  are  iden- 
tical. Every  other  being  has  his  idea  in  God,  and  his  reality 
is  distinct  from  his  idea,  as  the  finite  is  from  the  infinite. 
God,  who  alone  is  infinite,  is  identical  with  his  ideal,  which 
is  himself.  Therefore  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  is 
both  rational  and  experimental. 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          169 

To  establish  this  proof,  we  must  know  a  posteriori  that 
there  is  a  Being  such  that  none  greater  can  be  conceived. 
How  can  we  know  this  a  posteriori  ?  By  what  effect,  what 
experience,  are  we  to  reach  it  ?  By  the  path  traced  out  by 
Saint  Anselm,  as  we  have  seen,  and  followed  by  Descartes 
when  he  said,  "  I  am  an  imperfect,  incomplete  being,  depend- 
ent upon  others,  ceaselessly  tending  and  aspiring  towards 
something  higher  and  better  than  I  am;"  and  Descartes  con- 
cludes from  this  experimental  postulate  the  existence  of  ac- 
tual infinity.  And  this  by  an  intellectual  and  moral  impulse 
which  clings  to  the  inner  attraction  of  the  sovereign  Good. 
Saint  Thomas  shows  the  existence  of  this  attraction  in  the 
soul  (Art  L,  ad.  lm),  when  he  explains  the  remark  of  John  of 
Damascus  which  is  brought  to  bear  against  him,  —  That  all 
men  know  God  naturally.  We  have,  he  says,  a  confused 
knowledge  of  him  in  our  desire  for  happiness.  Now,  this 
confused  knowledge  is  the  experimental  basis  of  distinct 
knowledge;  it  is  the  chief  effect  upon  which  reason  relies 
for  rising  to  God.  This  desire  for  happiness,  this  attraction 
of  the  sovereign  Good,  is  the  sense  of  infinity  naturally  ex- 
isting in  all  men,  if  they  do  not  destroy  it  by  their  own 
perversity. 

IV. 

For  a  better  knowledge  of  Saint  Thomas's  theory  of  the 
method  which  rises  to  God,  we  should  read  his  comments  on 
Saint  Paul's  great  words  :  "  The  invisible  God  is  seen  in  his 
works."  This  divine  text,  as  we  have  already  seen,  contains 
all  the  ideas  of  Saint  Thomas  upon  this  subject.  Saint 
Thomas  explains  it  thus. 

Saint  Paul  is  speaking  of  those  men  "  who  changed  the 
truth  of  God  into  a  lie,  and  hid  that  which  may  be  known 
of  God,  which  God  had  showed  unto  them.  For  the  in- 
visible things  of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are 


170  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are  made, 
even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead." 
In  fact,  says  Saint  Thomas, — 

"  Knowledge  of  the  true  God  of  itself  leads  us  to  the  Good,  but 
it  is  captive  and  bound  by  wilful  love  of  injustice." 

"  These  men,  therefore,  possessed  to  a  certain  extent  the  true 
knowledge  of  God ;  for  what  we  may  know  of  God  (quod  notum  est 
Dei),  that  is,  what  man  may  know  of  him  through  reason,  shone 
within  them,  was  showed  unto  them  by  some  inner  faculty,  by 
the  intrinsic  light  of  the  soul." 

"  Not  that,  in  one  respect,  God  may  not  be  unknown  to  man  in 
this  life,  according  to  the  mysterious  inscription  found  by  Saint 
Paul,  —  Ignoto  Deo.  We  do  not  know  what  God  is.  In  fact,  our 
knowledge  of  God  begins  with  the  spectacle  of  the  world  in  which 
we  live,  with  the  sight  of  those  sentient  creatures  whose  limita- 
tions can  in  no  wise  represent  the  divine  essence.  On  the  other 
hand,  however,  the  sight  of  his  creatures  leads  us  to  know  God  in 
three  ways,  as  Dionysius  shows  in  his  book  on  the  Divine  Names. 

"First,  by  causality  (viam  causalitatis) .  For  all  creatures 
being  liable  to  change  and  imperfection,  we  must  needs  refer 
them  to  a  perfect  and  unchanging  principle.  And  this  teaches 
us  that  God  is." 

"Secondly,  by  excellence  (viam  excellentice).  For  when  we 
refer  all  creatures  to  their  beginning  and  cause,  it  is  a  beginning 
which  they  do  not  contain,  and  a  cause  which  absolutely  trans- 
cends them,  and  thence  we  know  not  only  that  God  is,  but  that 
he  is  above  all." 

"  Thirdly,  by  negation  (viam  negationis).  For  this  cause  tran- 
scends all  its  effects ;  we  must  deny  of  it  in  a  certain  sense  that 
which  we  see  in  created  beings ;  and  it  is  thus  that  we  say  of 
God  that  he  is  infinite  and  immutable,  his  creatures  being  finite 
and  variable." 

"  God  therefore,  as  Saint  Paul  says,  made  himself  manifest." 

"  Now,  God  makes  himself  manifest  in  two  ways  :  first,  by 
shedding  inward  light  upon  our  soul,  and  then  by  showing  us  the 
outward  signs  of  his  wisdom  and  power,  —  created  beings.  God 
thus  made  himself  manifest  to  all  men,  both  by  this  inward  light 
and  by  his  creatures,  in  whom  we  may  read,  as  in  a  book,  the 
knowledge  of  God." 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          171 

"  But,  more  exactly,  what  do  we  learn  of  God  from  these  postu- 
lates 1  The  invisible  perfections  of  God,  says  Saint  Paul, — that  is, 
his  essence  (per  guce  intelligitur  Dei  essentia)  ;  but  not  in  his  unity. 
We  find  traces  and  images  of  him  in  his  creatures,  which  show  us 
partially  and  by  their  multiplicity  that  which  is  one  in  God,  and 
through  this  our  intelligence  considers  the  essence  of  God  under 
the  forms  of  a  goodness,  a  wisdom,  a  power,  which  are  not  such  in 
God." 

"  Secondly,  we  know  his  creative  power,  —  that  he  is  the  begin- 
ning of  all  things." 

"  Thirdly,  we  know  his  divinity ;  we  know  that  he  is  the  end  to 
which  all  beings  tend." 

"  The  first  knowledge,  that  of  the  essence,  is  acquired  by  nega- 
tion ;  the  second,  by  causality ;  the  third,  by  excellence." 

"  What  is  the  nature  of  this  knowledge  1  The  Apostle  tells  us  : 
we  see  these  things  by  intellect  (intellectu  conspiciuntur) .  In 
fact,  we  know  God  by  the  intellect,  not  by  the  senses  or  imagina- 
tion, which  have  not  that  power  of  transcendence  which  rises 
above  material  things:  and  God  is  a  spirit." 

Such  is  the  commentary  on  Saint  Paul's  words.  It  shows 
us  clearly  the  method  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas.  Created 
beings  are  the  starting-point ;  the  active  force  is  reason,  the 
light  which  God  sheds  within  the  soul,  —  the  process  to 
which  he  gives  three  names  (causalitatis,  excellentice,  or 
eminentice,  negationis),  and  which  leads  us  to  perceive  that 
created  beings,  being  subject  to  change  and  imperfection, 
do  not  exist  of  themselves ;  that  is  to  say  that  God  is, 
and  that  God,  existing  of  himself,  is  neither  subject  to 
change  or  imperfection,  this  process  consists  in  perceiving 
perfection  (excellentia)  in  imperfection,  in  denying  (via  ne- 
gationis) the  limits  of  the  finite  qualities  which  we  see. 

Saint  Thomas  very  aptly  observes  that  to  do  this  we  must 
rise  by  means  of  intellect  (transcendere)  above  that  which 
imagination  and  the  senses  can  give  us.  This  is  precisely 
the  process  of  transcendence  to  which  we  have  so  often  re- 
ferred, and  which  is  defined  by  the  words :  The  way  of  excel- 


172  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

lence  and  of  negation  (mam  excellentice  et  negationis), — a 
process  which  he  calls  elsewhere  the  way  of  eminence  and 
of  elimination  (via  eminentice,  via  remotionis),  and  of  which 
he  says:  "These  negations  do  not  mean  that  he  lacks  that 
which  we  deny  of  him,  but  that  he  possesses  it  in  excess 
(hcec  non  removentur  ab  eo  propter  ejus  defectum,  sed  quia 
super  excedit)" 

But  Saint  Thomas  perfects  this  doctrine  and  touches  its 
depths,  in  his  comments  upon  the  rest  of  the  same  chapter 
of  Saint  Paul's  Epistle. 

Saint  Paul  shows  how  the  knowledge  of  God,  which  is 
given  us,  is  not  accepted ;  it  is  in  us,  but  we  smother  it. 

It  is  iniquity  that  smothers  the  knowledge  of  God  within 
us.  Saint  Paul  has  already  declared  this,  it  is  his  first  re- 
mark: "They  held  the  truth  in  unrighteousness.  .  .  .  They 
are  without  excuse ;  they  knew  God,  and  they  glorified  him 
not.  .  .  .  But  they  became  vain  in  their  imaginations,  and 
their  foolish  heart  was  darkened.  .  .  .  Professing  themselves 
to  be  wise,  they  became  fools.  .  .  .  They  changed  the  truth 
of  God  into  a  lie,  and  worshipped  and  served  the  creature 
and  not  the  Creator." 

" Glory"  says  Saint  Thomas,  " is  nothing  but  the  light  it- 
self of  the  divine  nature."  Men  smother  it  within  them,  and 
become  vain  in  their  imaginations.  The  human  spirit  es- 
capes vanity  only  by  resting  upon  God ;  so  soon  as  it  ceases 
to  rely  on  God  it  is  vain :  the  mind  is  empty  and  the  heart 
darkened;  the  light  of  the  spirit  no  longer  illumines  the  heart; 
that  heart  becomes  more  and  more  foolish ;  it  has  lost  that 
light  of  divine  wisdom  which  alone  can  give  us  true  knowl- 
edge of  God.  The  eye  loses  sight  of  objects  when  the  rays  of 
the  sun  cease  to  give  this  to  it ;  so  too  he  who  turns  away 
from  God,  finding  his  support  in  himself,  and  not  in  God,  loses 
the  light  of  the  mind.  What  does  the  man  who  does  not  as- 
cribe to  God  the  glory  of  God,  that  is,  the  divine  light  which 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          173 

falls  upon  him,  do  with  that  glory  ?  He  ascribes  it  to  created 
beings ;  he  sees  its  cause  in  nature  or  in  himself.  He  at- 
tributes to  the  image  that  which  only  exists  in  the  original, 
reversing  everything,  and  making  that  which  is  secondary  first. 
.  .  .  The  same  reversal  is  immediately  wrought  in  that  soul 
which  puts  God  below  the  world,  from  opinion  and  affection : 
its  reason,  which  is  divine,  also  places  itself  below  the  appe- 
tites, and  falls  into  that  reprobate  mind  (sensum  reprobum) 
of  which  the  Apostle  speaks,  which  is  the  very  opposite  of 
nature,  as  is  proved  by  the  strange  and  unnatural  vices  to 
which  it  falls  a  prey.  And  all  this  because,  having  true 
knowledge  of  God  through  the  light  of  reason,  together  with 
the  sight  of  created  beings,  man  does  not  accept  it  nor  ex- 
plain it,  preferring  to  remain  in  vice. 

Such  is  the  commentary  of  Saint  Thomas  upon  this  grand 
text  of  Saint  Paul. 

All  this  is  clearly  the  very  foundation  of  the  truth  in  re- 
gard to  the  question  :  Why  not  prove  God  explicitly  ?  The 
elements  of  the  knowledge  of  God  are,  everywhere  and  al- 
ways, given  to  us,  within  us  and  outside  us :  within  us,  God 
himself  enlightens  us ;  outside  us,  he  also  enlightens  us,  by 
giving  us  a  book  which  is  his  work,  the  world.  Why  do  not 
men  read  this  book  ?  Their  vices  prevent  them ;  this  is  the 
real  obstacle.  Saint  Thomas,  as  well  as  Saint  Paul,  analyzes 
this  mystery  of  iniquity ;  he  says :  It  is  a  reversal  (converte- 
runt  primum  in  ultimum).  Theoretically,  man  believes 
himself  to  be  the  source  of  that  light  which  God  never  ceases 
to  shed  upon  him,  or  else  he  believes  the  material  world  to 
be  its  source,  and  that  reason  comes  from  the  senses.  This 
is  a  reversal.  Practically,  he  subjects  his  reason  to  the  sen- 
sual impulses  which  nature  excites  within  him.  Another 
reversal.  Sense  is  reversed.  Man  overturns  and  reverses 
everything,  in  practice  and  speculatively.  We  shall  see,  in 
the  course  of  this  work,  whether  the  doctrine  of  scientific 


174  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD, 

atheism,  as  it  is  formulated  to-day,  be  not  the  doctrine  of  re- 
versal exactly  and  methodically  applied  to  philosophy.  This 
curious  intellectual  and  moral  phenomenon  should  throw  a 
flood  of  light  upon  a  multitude  of  moral,  logical,  and  psycho- 
logical questions. 

Thus,  in  order  to  rise  to  God,  we  must  first  conquer  the 
obstacle,  as  all  true  philosophers  say.  Then  only  are  we 
able  to  take  the  spectacle  of  the  world  as  our  point  of  de- 
parture from  which  to  rise  to  God ;  then  reason  displays  its 
powers,  and  the  process  which  ascends  to  God  is  carried  out. 
Then  only  do  we  wake  from  that  guilty  folly  to  which  Saint 
Paul  refers,  and  of  which  Saint  Thomas  says  elsewhere : 
"Such  folly  is  sinful"  (stultitia  estpeccatum). 

As  for  the  process  as  a  whole,  we  find  in  the  writings  of 
Saint  Thomas  a  multitude  of  passages  which  show  us  how 
he  understood  it ;  notably  these  statements :  "  God  is  all 
things  infinitely  (Deus  est  omnia  eminenter) ;  God  is  in  act 
that  which  in  things  is  only  potential  (Deus  est  actualitas 
omnium  rerum) ;  All  of  being,  goodness,  and  perfection  to 
be  found  in  any  creature  whatsoever,  exists  pre-eminently  in 
God  (Quidquid  entitatis,  bonitatis,  perfectionis  est  in  qua- 
cumque  creatura,  totum  est  eminentius  in  Deo)  ;  "  and  through 
his  creatures  we  know  God,  by  applying  to  the  good  quali- 
ties which  we  see,  a  process  of  elimination  which  deprives 
them  of  their  limitations  (ad  cognoscendum  Deum  oportet 
via  remotionis.) 

V. 

Everything  has  not  been  said  regarding  the  theory  of 
the  knowledge  of  God  as  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  states  it. 
Hitherto  we  have  shown  him  as  speaking  after  Aristotle's 
method  and  somewhat  after  Plato's  fashion.  He  will  now 
speak  wholly  like  Plato  and  like  Saint  Augustine.  Saint 
Thomas  not  only  knew  the  first  of  those  two  regions  of  the 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          175 

world  of  intelligibility  distinguished  by  those  sublime  minds  ; 
as  a  Christian  and  a  theologian,  he  must  have  known  the 
other.  He  did  know  it ;  and  we  must  own  that  he  dis- 
tinguishes both  regions,  and  describes  them  with  a  precision 
and  exactness  equalled  by  no  other  theologian  or  philosopher 
whatever.  Therefore  the  name  of  the  Angel  of  the  School, 
applied  to  Saint  Thomas,  will  endure. 

The  reader  will  recall  what  Saint  Augustine  says  of 
reason  attaining  to  its  end  and  becoming  power  (ratio 
perveniens  ad  finem  suum  .  .  .  virtus  vocatur).  This  final 
end  of  reason  is  the  sight  of  God.  Transcending  the  vision 
of  those  absolute  truths,  which  are  but  the  eternal  and  cer- 
tain shadow  of  the  divine  essence  and  the  living  truth,  reason 
finds,  as  Plato  and  Augustine  say,  truth  itself,  or  the  sun  it- 
self, which  makes  these  other  truths  apparent.  Saint  Thomas 
knows  and  discriminates  so  fully  between  these  two  degrees 
of  intelligibility  that  he  usually  makes  separate  questions 
of  them  ;  and  the  reader  who  does  not  effect  a  reconciliation, 
sometimes  takes  Saint  Thomas  for  a  rationalist,  —  that  is,  for 
a  mind  arrested  at  natural  philosophy,  which  does  not  go  to 
the  end,  nor  even  so  far  as  Plato  when  he  speaks  of  the  term 
of  the  dialectic  (re'Xo?  rr/?  Tropeias}.  Now,  Saint  Thomas  goes 
farther  than  Plato  upon  this  point,  —  as  far  as  Saint  Augus- 
tine ;  and  he  is  more  exact  on  this  point  than  even  Saint 
Augustine,  who  is  far  more  exact  than  Plato. 

"  There  are,"  distinctly  says  Saint  Thomas,  "  two  degrees 
of  divine  intelligibility  (duplici  igitur  veritate  divinorum 
intelliyibilium  existente).  There  are,  relatively  to  us,  two 
modes  of  divine  truth  (duplex  veritatis  modus  .  .  .  duplicem 
veritatem  divinorurri)" 

This  is  fundamental :  THERE  ARE  TWO  DEGREES  OF  DIVINE 

INTELLIGIBILITY. 

"  Reason,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "  has  a  double  term  and  two 
degrees  of  perfection :  a  first  degree,  to  which  natural  light 


176  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

leads  us,  and  a  second  degree,  to  which  the  supernatural  light 
is  our  guide."  The  reader  must  not  judge  this  latter  state- 
ment without  fully  comprehending  it  and  knowing  the  idea 
to  which  it  corresponds  in  the  thought  of  the  theologians 
who  employ  it. 

Thus  there  are  clearly  two  degrees  of  divine  intelligibility 
to  which  our  intelligence  may  attain.  But  wherein  does  the 
distinction  lie  ? 

The  distinction,  according  to  Saint  Thomas,  is  that  which 
Saint  Paul  makes :  "  For  now  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly 
(per  speculum)  ;  but  then  face  to  face  (tune  autem  facie  ad 
faciem)" 

Saint  Thomas  comments  on  this  text  in  the  same  strain 
as  all  commentators  who  come  after  him.  "  Now,"  says  an 
esteemed  author,  "  we  see  God,  not  in  himself  immediately, 
but  indirectly,  by  reflected  rays ;  .  .  .  then  we  shall  see  him 
directly,  perfectly,  in  his  divine  essence.  ...  I  shall  see  God 
himself,  as  I  am  myself  known  of  God."  This  is  the  thought 
of  Saint  Thomas,  whose  admirable  commentary  upon  Saint 
Paul's  grand  expression  we  must  quote  entire.  He  says,  — 

"  What  is  this  sight  through  a  glass,  and  what  is  this  sight 
face  to  face?" 

44  We  may  see,"  he  replies,  "  either  light  itself  (ipsa  lux),  which 
strikes  the  eye  itself  (quce  presens  est  oculo),  or  else  its  reflex 
image,  as  when  we  perceive  the  white  color  of  an  object." 

"  Now,  God  sees  himself  in  the  first  way.  His  essence  is  di- 
rectly present  to  his  intelligence,  since  his  intelligence  is  his 
essence  (in  Deo  idem  est  sua  essentia  et  suus  intellectus,  et  ideo 
sua  essentia  est  prcesens  suo  intellect  fit)." 

"  As  for  us,  we  know  God  in  this  life,  by  seeing  his  invisible 
beauty  in  his  creatures.  The  whole  creation  is  like  a  mirror  to 
us.  The  order,  beauty,  and  grandeur  which  God  imparts  to  his 
works  teach  us  to  know  his  wisdom,  truth,  and  divine  infinity. 
This  is  the  knowledge  which  has  been  called  seeing  through 
a  glass." 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          177 

And  now  what  is  it  to  see  him  face  to  face  ? 

"  When  we  look  into  a  glass,  we  do  not  see  the  thing  itself, 
but  its  image;  and  when  we  look  face  to  face,  we  see  the  thing 
itself  just  as  it  is.  When,  therefore,  the  Apostle  tells  us  that  in 
heaven  we  shall  see  God  face  to  face,  he  means  that  we  shall 
see  the  essence  of  God." 

"Even  as  God  knows  my  essence,  I  too  shall  know  God  in 
his  essence." 

"  Those  who  say  that  we  shall  never  see  God,  save  by  simili- 
tude, say  what  is  false  and  impossible.  ...  To  say  that  God 
can  only  be  seen  by  the  image  and  reflection  of  his  light,  is 
to  say  that  we  cannot  see  the  essence  of  God.  But  the  soul: 
itself  is  an  image  of  God ;  the  sight  of  the  soul,  wherein  migra- 
tory man  sees  God,  would  therefore  be  no  more  enigmatic  and 
specular  than  that  elear,  direct  vision  promised  to  us  in  glory.. 
.  .  .  And  then  the  natural  desire  of  mankind  to  reach  the  First 
Cause  and  behold  his  very  self  would  be  idle  and  vain." 

Here  certainly  is  light,  full  noonday,  thrown  upon  what  we 
must  call  the  central  point  of  Philosophy.  Eecall  Plato's 
distinction  between  the  sight  of  divine  phantasms,  shadows 
of  that  which  is,  and  the  sight  through  the  intellect  of  the 
Good  itself  such  as  it  is.  Kecall  the  same  distinction  as 
made  by  Saint  Augustine,  almost  in  the  same  terms. 

Saint  Thomas  quotes  and  comments  on  these  passages 
from  Saint  Augustine's  works.  In  this  specular  sight,  he 
says,  in  this  first  degree  of  intelligibility,  it  is  indeed  eternal 
truths  that  we  see  (rationes  incorporates  et  sempiternas) ; 
these  truths  are  higher  than  the  human  soul,  since  they  are 
immutable  (quoe  nisi  supra  mentem  essent,  incommutaliles 
profecto  non  essent) :  Saint  Augustine  rightly  speaks  thus. 
But  these  truths,  as  we  see  them,  are  not  God  himself.  "  We 
see  them  in  God,  since  they  are  eternal."  Yes ;  but  only  in 
the  sense  that  we  see  them  in  his  light,  —  that  is,  by  the 
natural  light  of  reason,  which  is  a  participation  in  the  divine 
light,  Saint  Augustine,  to  whom  some  very  inopportunely 

12 


178  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

take  exception  here,  expresses  himself  perfectly  when  he  says : 
"  These  intelligible  spectacles  only  become  visible  to  us  as  illu- 
mined by  their  sun,  which  is  God.  Just  as  in  order  to  see  an 
object  with  our  eyes,  it  is  not  necessary  to  see  the  substance 
and  body  of  the  sun,  so,  too,  to  see  the  intelligible  of  this 
degree,  it  is  not  necessary  to  see  the  essence  of  God." 

In  this  lower  degree  of  the  intelligible  world,  without 
seeing  the  essence  of  God,  we  still  know  God  through  our 
natural  reason.  When  Saint  Augustine  says  :  "  The  eye  of 
the  soul  is  diseased,  and  it  cannot  gaze  unblenchingly  at  this 
excellent  light,  except  it  be  purified  by  the  justice  of  faith;' 
he  refers  to  the  sight  of  the  essence  of  God.  But  when 
Saint  Paul  says,  "That  which  may  be  known  of  God  is 
manifest  in  them,"  he  refers  to  that  knowledge  of  God  which 
is  given  to  us  by  reason,  without  faith.  Assuredly  that 
reason  rests  upon  sensible  postulates  which  cannot  show  us 
the  divine  essence,  since  these  visible  effects  are  in  no  wise 
adequate  to  their  cause,  which  is  God.  But  yet,  as  these 
effects  would  not  exist  unless  their  cause  existed,  they  prove 
to  us  that  God  is,  and  they  teach  us  that  he  must  be,  as  the 
cause  of  all,  superior  to  all.  We  know  that  he  is  nothing  of 
all  that  which  he  has  created,  but  that  all  which  we  deny  of 
him  must  be  denied,  not  because  he  lacks  that  which  we 
deny,  but  because  he  possesses  it  in  excess. 

Such  is,  according  to  Saint  Thomas,  the  first  of  the  two 
degrees  of  the  world  of  intelligibility.  The  second  is  proba- 
bly distinct  therefrom. 

Saint  Thomas  speaks  of  this  second  degree  particularly  in 
that  question  in  the  Sum :  How  may  the  human  mind  know 
God  ?  (la,  q.  xii.)  We  give  the  headings  of  the  articles  into 
which  he  divides  this  question :  — 

1.  Can  the  created  intellect  see  God  in  his  essence  ?     Yes. 

2.  Does  the  created   intellect  which  sees  God's  essence, 
see  it  by  any  image  or  likeness  ?    No. 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          179 

3.  Can  God's  essence  be  seen  by  the  material  eye  ?     No. 

4.  Can  created  intellect  see  God's  essence  by  the  unaided 
powers  of  its  own  nature  (per  sua  naturalia)  ?     No. 

5.  Does   created   intellect  require  the   intermediation   of 
any  created  light  in  order  to  see  God's  essence?     No. 

6.  Can   God's   essence   be   seen   more   or  less  perfectly  ? 
Yes. 

7.  Is  seeing  God's  essence  the  same  thing  as  understand- 
ing God  ?     No. 

8.  Does  the  soul  which  beholds  God's  essence  see  every- 
thing in  that  essence  ?     No. 

9.  Does  the  soul  see  what  it  sees  in  God's  essence,  under 
any  figure  ?     No. 

10.  Does  he  who  sees  God's  essence,  see  in  God,  at   a 
single  glance,  all  that  he  sees  therein  ?     Yes. 

11.  Is  it  possible,  in  this  life,  to  see  God's  essence  ?     No, 
save  it  be  by  a  miracle. 

12.  Can  we,  in  this  life,  know  God  by  our  natural  reason? 
Yes. 

13.  Can  we  have,  in  this  life,  a  knowledge  of  God  deeper 
than  that  which  our  natural  reason  can  give  ?     Yes. 

Here  we  have  this  great  distinction  settled  with  a  clear- 
ness and  vigor  which  the  ancients  could  not  apply  to  it. 
There  is  the  same  difference  between  these  two  degrees  of 
divine  intelligibility  that  there  is  between  the  heaven  and 
the  earth. 

But  then  —  and  this  seems  to  result  from  what  has  just 
been  established  in  regard  to  the  question  cited  —  it  would 
follow  that  of  the  two  degrees  of  divine  intelligibility,  one 
would  be  only  for  this  world  and  this  life,  and  the  other 
for  heaven  and  the  life  to  come.  Thus  Plato  and  Aristotle 
must  have  been  under  an  entire  illusion  when  they  spoke 
of  the  highest  degree  of  divine  intelligibility  as  capable  of 
being  grasped  in  this  life,  although  with  great  difficulty  and 
dimness. 


180  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

Let  us  distinguish.  Yes,  according  to  Saint  Thomas,  as 
well  as  according  to  Saint  Paul  and  all  Christian  theology, 
the  clear  vision  of  God's  essence,  save  in  certain  rare  and 
miraculous  cases,  is  reserved  for  the  life  to  come,  for  the 
heavenly  home. 

But  it  must  be  understood  that  in  this  higher  of  the  two 
degrees  of  divine  intelligibility  —  the  one  which  gives  us, 
not  shadows,  images,  phantasms,  and  likenesses  of  God,  but 
his  essence  —  there  are  also  two  degrees  :  one  to  which  the 
soul  will  only  attain  after  its  struggle,  its  labor,  and  its  con- 
summation, when  it  has  reached  its  goal  and  gained  the 
peace  and  rest  of  the  heavenly  home  (in  patria  videntium) ; 
and  the  lower,  which  the  soul  attains  during  its  progress 
(in  ma  videntium).  And  these  two  degrees  of  the  same 
light  may  be  distinguished  by  these  terras  :  the  light  of  grace 
and  the  light  of  glory  (lumen  gratice,  lumen  glorice)  ;  or  else, 
the  light  of  faith  and  the  light  of  vision  (lumen  fidei  et 
lumen  visionis), — faith,  according  to  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas, 
being  but  the  beginning,  still  dim  and  unskilled,  of  the 
direct  vision  of  God  and  his  essence.  "Faith,  as  to  the 
assurance  which  it  gives,  is  knowledge,  and  may  be  called 
science  and  vision.  Faith  is  an  assured  beginning  of  the 
beatific  vision  of  God.  Faith  belongs  to  the  same  order  as 
the  vision  of  the  heavenly  country." 

Saint  Thomas  invariably  declares  faith  to  be  the  beginning 
of  the  intrinsic  knowledge  of  God,  as  distinct  from  that 
reflex  and  abstract  knowledge  given  by  the  natural  light 
of  reason. 

While  the  natural  light  of  reason  is  created  truth  (veritas 
creata),  that  is  to  say,  the  divine  light  reflected  by  a  created 
object,  —  or,  if  you  prefer,  an  image  of  unrevealed  truth 
reflected  in  us  (similitudo  veritatis  increatce  in  nobis  resul- 
tantis),  —  the  object  of  faith,  on  the  contrary,  is  uncreated 
truth,  original  truth  (oljectum  fidei,  veritas  prima,  veritas 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          181 

increata).  "  Faith,  when  it  is  virtue,  raising  human  intelli- 
gence above  its  proper  light,  unites  it  to  truth  itself  as  it 
exists  in  the  divine  intelligence,  truth  which  is  the  un- 
created itself  (ipsius  rei  increatce  objectum)"  Undoubtedly, 
we  must  carefully  distinguish  between  faith  and  supreme 
vision ;  but  they  both  have  the  same  object  The  object  of 
supreme  vision  is  original  truth,  in  so  far  as  luminous ;  the 
object  of  faith  is  original  truth  in  so  far  as  obscure.  It  is 
neither  God's  creatures,  men  or  angels,  whose  testimony 
leads  us  to  believe,  nor  the  images  under  which  we  believe, 
that  are  the  object  of  faith,  —  it  is  God  himself,  with  the 
knowledge  of  whom  the  assent  of  faith  brings  us  into  unity. 
Original  truth  is  indeed,  in  itself  and  first  of  all,  the  object 
of  faith  (veritas  prima  est  primo  et  per  se  objectum  fidei). 

We  quote  a  fine  passage  from  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  upon 
this  subject ;  it  includes  everything :  — 

"  Light,  during  our  earthly  pilgrimage,  is  given  to  us  in  two 
ways :  sometimes  in  a  lesser  degree,  and  as  it  were  in  faint  rays. 
This  is  the  light  of  our  native  intelligence,  which  is  a  participation 
in  the  eternal  light,  although  remote,  defective,  comparable  to 
darkness  mingled  with  a  little  light ;  which  gives  man  that  reason, 
the  shadow  of  intelligence  itself,  whose  feeble  radiance  gives  birth 
to  a  diversity  of  opinions  to  be  destroyed  by  the  direct  radiation 
of  light.  Sometimes  light  is  given  in  a  higher  degree,  in  more 
abundant  clearness,  and  which  brings  us  as  it  were  face  to  face  with 
the  sun.  But  there  our  sight  is  dazzled,  because  it  beholds  that 
which  is  beyond  us,  beyond  human  understanding;  and  this  is 
the  light  of  faith." 

Such,  therefore,  is  the  beginning  of  the  second  degree  of 
divine  intelligibility ;  it  is  faith,  the  beginning  of  the  knowl- 
edge which  we  shall  have  in  heaven  (fides  qucedam  prceli- 
batio  brevis  quam  in  futuro  habebimus  cognitionis). 

We  have  here  a  fine  distinction  between  the  two  degrees 
of  divine  intelligibility,  that  one  may  be  obtained  by  the 
search  of  reason,  and  that  the  other  transcends  all  efforts  of 


182  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

human  reason.  It  is  this  second  degree  which  is  the  ob- 
ject of  faith,  and  "  although  reason  by  faith  cannot  wholly 
grasp  it,  yet  a  high  degree  of  perfection  is  given  it,  if  it  can 
grasp  it  in  any  way,  through  faith."  Profane  philosophy 
does  not  enter  here,  and  it  is  of  this  that  Saint  Paul  speaks 
when  he  says :  "  God  hath  revealed  unto  us  by  his  Spirit  what 
none  of  the  princes  of  this  world  knew."  "  The  princes  of 
this  world,"  says  Saint  Thomas,  "are  the  philosophers." 
Philosophers  suspect  and  know  by  conjecture  and  reasoning 
the  existence  of  this  region,  but  they  do  not  enter  it ;  and,  as 
Saint  Thomas  says,  "  Certain  of  them  see  the  light,  but  are 
not  in  the  light."  And  he  lays  stress  on  Isaiah's  vigorous 
words:  "Seeing  many  things,  thou  observest  not."  (Qui 
multa  vides,  nonne  custodies  ?)  (Is.  xlii.  20.) 

Thus,  in  brief,  the  doctrine  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  is 
this :  God  is  light ;  man  may  see  the  light  which  is  God, 
directly  or  indirectly.  These  are  the  two  degrees  of  divine 
intelligibility.  Naturally  he  sees  only  the  second  degree ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  reflection  or  image  of  uncreated  truth  in 
the  mirror  of  created  beings,  or  the  mirror  of  the  soul.  This 
is  what  is  called  the  natural  light  of  reason.  But  there  is  a 
higher  degree  of  light  for  which  the  human  mind  has  some 
natural  desire.  The  human  mind  would  fain  see  the  First 
Cause  itself  in  itself.  This  sight  is  the  sight  of  the  essence 
of  God,  the  direct  sight  of  the  light  which  is  God.  This  is 
why  this  degree  is  called  that  of  supernatural  light,  God 
being  above  and  beyond  all  nature.  But  there  are  two  de- 
grees of  lucidity,  in  the  supernatural  degree  itself ;  there  is 
the  confused,  implicit,  dazzled,  and  unpractised  vision :  this 
is  faith,  the  light  of  grace  ;  and  there  is  clear  vision,  supreme 
vision  in  the  light  of  glory.  The  one  is  offered  to  man  dur- 
ing his  journey  through  this  life  (in  via  videntium) ;  and 
the  other  awaits  just  men  and  saints  at  the  end  of  their  jour- 
ney in  the  heavenly  home  (in  p'atria  videntium). 


THEODICY  OF  SAINT  THOMAS  AQUINAS.          183 

UNlT 
VI. 


Do  not  understand,  I  beg,  all  these  terms,  faith,  grace, 
glory,  natural  light,  and  supernatural  light,  as  being  more 
than  names  applied  to  the  intelligible  objects  described; 
let  us  for  a  moment  forget  their  theological  meaning.  We 
say  that  at  any  rate  we  have  here  an  exact  description  and  a 
complete  guide  to  that  world  of  intelligibility  into  which 
Plato  looked.  Saint  Thomas  is  as  superior  to  Plato  in  exact 
knowledge  of  the  world  of  intelligibility  as  Kepler  and  New- 
ton are  to  Pythagoras  in  astronomy.  Pythagoras  indeed 
thought  that  the  stars  must  form  a  heart,  of  which  the  sun, 
the  source  of  light,  was  lord  and  centre ;  so  he  said.  But 
Kepler  and  Newton  said:  Yes,  these  worlds  revolve  about 
the  sun  in  curves  whose  geometric  nature  is  as  follows  ;  they 
are  attracted  towards  that  centre  by  a  force  whose  law  is  as 
follows.  Here,  moreover,  you  have  the  speed  and  weight  of 
each  of  these  worlds. 

Such  is  the  distance  between  the  conjecture  and  instinct  of 
genius,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  revealed  and  ex- 
act knowledge.  I  rank  Plato  very  high,  but  I  consider 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  as  even  more  above  Plato  than  our 
knowledge  of  the  physical  world  is  above  that  of  the  Greeks. 
Plato  worked  almost  alone,  amidst  the  gloom  of  the  antique 
world ;  Saint  Thomas  worked  beneath  the  sun  of  Christianity, 
sustained  by  the  labor,  the  experience,  and  the  wisdom  of 
innumerable  witnesses  of  the  light,  —  just  as  our  modern  sci- 
ence, the  fruit  of  a  common  industry,  is  enlightened  by  all 
which  is  shown  it  by  thousands  of  eyes,  increased  by  all  that 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  hands  can  bring  to  it. 

But  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  is  not  understood  !  There  are 
in  him  heights,  depths,  and  precisions  which  contemporary 
intellect  is  far  from  suspecting,  and  which  may  perhaps  be 


184  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

understood  several  generations  hence,  if  philosophy  is  re- 
vived, if  wisdom  reappears  among  us.  Aristotle  says  some- 
where that  probably  the  arts  and  philosophy  have  been 
discovered  and  lost  several  times  over ;  that  this  is  the  cause 
of  those  fragments  of  antique  wisdom  brought  down  to  us  by 
tradition,  I  believe  this  also,  but  in  a  different  sense. 
Philosophy  was  discovered  by  Plato  and  Aristotle,  by  Saint 
Augustine,  by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  by  the  seventeenth 
century,  but  was  lost  in  the  intervals.  To-day,  among  us, 
it  is  evidently  lost.  We  read  ancient  monuments  without 
understanding  them  ;  we  do  not  know  the  language  in  which 
they  are  written ;  we  do  not  penetrate  their  meaning. 

The  centuries  lose  wisdom  or  find  it  again,  just  as  a  man 
may  lose  or  find  the  truth,  at  different  periods  of  his  life, 
according  as  his  soul  is  dissolved  in  sensual  pleasure  and 
fallen  into  the  night  of  the  senses,  or  steeped  in  virtue  and 
lifted  towards  the  intelligible.  When  a  man  renounces 
wisdom,  he  does  not  therefore  forget  the  discourse  which 
divine  wisdom  has  held  with  his  soul,  the  words  which  it 
has  graven  on  his  memory  :  but  those  words  have  lost  their 
aureole,  their  life,  their  charm,  their  meaning ;  they  are 
withered  remnants,  which  thought,  whose  abode  is  elsewhere, 
rolls  along  in  its  course  because  they  are  there  ;  but  she  no 
longer  uses  them  or  believes  in  them.  Such  is  the  state  of 
contemporary  thought  in  regard  to  the  noble  philosophy  of 
the  past  and  the  wisdom  of  the  great  ages ;  it  possesses  all 
their  monuments,  but  has  not  their  intelligence,  and  still  less 
their  faith. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY. 
PART  FIRST. 

FROM  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  we  pass  to  the  seventeenth 
century.  In  the  interval,  the  human  mind  has  ap- 
parently undergone  a  great  change:  on  all  sides  Aristotle 
is  rejected  ;  the  Scholastic  system  and  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas  himself  are  held  in  less  esteem,  and  this  among 
the  wisest  and  most  learned.  Clever  intellects  exclude  and 
despise  the  philosophy  of  the  past.  Men  desire  to  see  for 
themselves  ;  they  ardently  search  after  truth,  rather  than 
the  mere  tradition  of  truth.  They  have  resolved  to  find 
true  knowledge;  the  mind  takes  a  fresh  flight,  and,  by  a 
generous  effort,  sheds  upon  this  noble  age  the  greatest  flood 
of  human  light  ever  known.  We  shall  now  see  whether 
this  light  be  other  than  the  light  of  the  past. 

The  mind  of  man  will  doubtless  extend  itself  to  fresh 
objects,  and  shine  with  more  lustre  in  certain  directions ; 
but  its  laws  will  remain  unchanged.  Its  former  acquisitions 
will  become  deeper ;  it  will  complete  and  verify  what  it  had 
already  found  in  past  ages,  and,  according  to  an  admirable 
expression  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  their  knowledge  shall  le 
renewed ;  but  we  shall  see  that  the  light  has  not  changed, 
and  that  the  renewed  knowledge  is,  in  fact,  ever  old  and 
ever  new. 


The  seventeenth  century  should  be  treated  as  a  single 
man,  or  better,  as  a  choir  of  voices.     Never  were  the  har- 


186  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

mony  and  unanimity  of  great  minds  more  apparent,  despite 
certain  easily  corrected  dissonances.  True,  these  noble 
geniuses  count  as  nothing  Spinoza,  that  questionable  spirit, 
and,  with  the  exception  of  Leibnitz,  who  was  far  too  amiable, 
have  nothing  to  say  to  Locke,  an  opaque  intellect.  The 
seventeenth  century  did  not  take  the  absurd  in  earnest,  but 
set  sophists  on  one  side,  and  practised,  in  philosophy,  the 
great  literary  precept :  Hoc  amet,  hoc  spernat,  "  Know  how 
to  love,  and  how  to  scorn,"  —  an  important  characteristic  of 
truly  philosophic  minds  or  ages,  which,  because  they  know 
the  true,  also  know  the  false,  and  because  they  are  lumi- 
nous, drive  away  darkness.  Night  alone  is  favorable  to  the 
equality  of  systems  and  to  a  common  respect  for  error  and 
truth.  The  seventeenth  century,  on  the  contrary,  is  exclu- 
sive in  the  light,  and  firm  in  the  unity  of  truth.  From 
this  centre,  it  radiates  light  and  strength  and  the  wealth  of 
its  harmonies.  Would  that  I  might  reproduce  something  of 
this  in  these  pages  !  My  readers  would  then  feel  that  if  the 
mind  of  man  is  destined  to  take  another  step  forward,  the 
next  great  century,  still  more  united  in  its  view  of  the  truth, 
still  more  fully  divided  from  the  false,  will  witness  the  birth 
of  certainties  of  which  we  have  lost  sight,  of  unanimities  for 
which  we  have  ceased  to  hope,  and  of  some  beginning  of 
that  luminous  peace  which  is  to  unite  sciences  and  minds 
in  God. 

All  the  philosophers  of  the  great  century  sought  God  be- 
fore anything  else,  knowing  that  he  is  the  first  truth  and 
the  universal  light.  Certainly  it  was  not  to  demonstrate  the 
existence  of  God  that  these  men,  full  of  practical  sense  as 
they  were,  meditated  their  demonstrations.  But  they 
knew  that  there  would  be  found  the  centre  of  all  phi- 
losophy, the  foundation  of  metaphysics,  the  vital  question 
of  method,  the  science  of  the  soul,  the  point  of  contact  be- 
tween logic  and  morals,  the  basis  of  physics,  and  the  essen- 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    187 

tial  meaning,  so  long  sought  for,  of  geometry.  Kepler,  the 
oldest  of  these  pleiades,  worked  in  science,  discovered  the 
heavens,  only  that  he  might  "  frame  a  tabernacle  for  his  God 
therefrom."  The  others  had  the  same  purpose :  Descartes, 
Pascal,  Malebranche,  Fenelon  and  Bossuet,  Leibnitz,  Clarke 
and  Newton,  Thomassin  and  Petau,  the  latter  twain  too  little 
known,  because  they  wrote  in  Latin :  all  seek  God  in  every 
direction  of  thought ;  and  all  these  voices  are  truly  united  in 
one  and  the  same  tone,  one  and  the  same  song ;  their  subject 
is  Being  and  infinite  perfection;  and  everything  is  com- 
bined in  this  wondrous  symphony,  from  Theology,  with  its 
dogmatic  decisions,  to  mathematics  themselves,  by  the  mar- 
vellous invention  of  Leibnitz. 

Let  us  cast  a  comprehensive  glance  at  the  proof  of  the 
existence  of  God  given  by  all  these  great  minds.  We  will 
listen  to  each  of  them  in  turn. 

The  mystics  shall  begin,  —  I  mean  the  true  mystics,  those 
whom  Bossuet  calls,  "  Safe  mystics."  1 

All  mysticism  is  contained  in  this  motto:  "Not  only  hear, 
but  feel  and  suffer,  the  divine."  2  It  is  of  this  degree  of 
inner  contemplation  that  Saint  Bonaventura  says  :  "  Not 
only  to  see  divine  spectacles,  but  to  taste  divine  savors."3 
The  mystic  school  is  a  school  of  divine  experiments. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  the  distaste  for  abstract 
and  isolated  reasoning,  and  the  need  of  experiment,  which 
characterizes  the  modern  scientific  movement,  was  first  made 
manifest  among  the  mystics,  and  probably  comes  from  them. 
The  "  Imitation  of  Christ "  popularized  this  feeling ;  then 
the  ardent  piety  of  the  Jesuits  and  the  saintly  spirit  of  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century  rooted  it  in  men's  souls. 
Saint  Philip  Neri,  Saint  John  of  the  Cross,  Saint  Theresa, 

1  Mystici  in  tuto. 

2  Non  solum  discens,  sed  et  patiens  divina. 

8  Non  solum  ad  tuenda  spectacula,  sed  etiam  ad  gustanda  divina  solatia. 


188  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

Saint  Francis  de  Sales,  the  pious  school  of  Condren  and  Olier, 
and  a  multitude  of  ascetic  writers  of  that  period,  spread 
abroad  a  feeling  of  contempt  for  abstract  reasoning  and  "  dry 
light,"  as  Bossuet  expresses  it,  and  they  urged  men's  souls  to 
the  direct  perception  of  reality,  to  knowledge  of  life  by  per- 
sonal experience.  They  apply  this  process  of  realism  to  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  the  soul ;  others  later  on  were  to 
apply  it  to  the  knowledge  of  nature. 

Upon  this  basis  of  practical  piety,  the  effort  of  genuine 
thinkers  stands  out  in  bold  relief :  after  the  saints  come  the 
sages.  The  latter  develop  the  profound  truth  grasped  by 
the  mystics ;  they  descend  into  their  own  souls,  and  seek 
there  for  traces  of  God.  Descartes,  meditating  on  the  soul, 
marks  the  way  by  these  words  :  "  I  am  an  imperfect,  in- 
complete thing,  dependent  upon  another,  ever  tending  and 
aspiring  towards  something  better  and  higher  than  I  am  ; 
but  the  great  things  to  which  I  aspire  are  actually  and  in- 
finitely possessed  by  him  on  whom  I  depend." l 

Here  we  have  the  finite  and  the  infinite  face  to  face.  The 
finite  seen  in  ourselves  as  such  by  the  direct  experience  of 
life,  and  the  infinite  grasped  in  the  finite  by  a  contrast  of  ex- 
perience, and  by  the  impulse  of  reason,  which,  without  devi- 
ation or  turn  or  discourse,  conceives  and  declares  the  infinite. 

Here  we  have  the  whole  dialectic  method.  The  entire,  chief 
process  of  reasoning  is  contained  here :  the  soul,  a  bounded 
thing,  regarded  as  finite  and  imperfect,  furnishes  a  starting- 
point  :  desire  for  the  perfection  which  we  do  not  possess,  but 
would  fain  have,  is  the  motive  spring;  hence  results  the 
flight  of  reason  towards  its  object,  —  the  absolute  and  ac- 
tual infinite. 

But  Descartes  and  others  bring  out  features  which  their 
predecessors  of  the  Middle  Age  merely  indicated.  This  is 
the  advance  in  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  For 

1  Third  Meditation,  close. 


THEODICY  OF   THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    189 

instance,  they  explain  two  things  which  Saint  Thomas 
stated,  but  possibly  without  bringing  them  into  sufficient 
juxtaposition,  and  which  include  the  whole  process :  — 

1.  God  is  all  things  eminently  (that  is,  infinitely).     All 
the  being,  goodness,  perfection,  found  in  any  creature  what- 
soever, all  this  is  in  God  in  an  infinite  degree.1 

2.  To  know  God,  we  must  employ  a  process  of  elimination.2 
They  all  say  with  Leibnitz :  "  The  perfections  of  God  are 

those  of  our  souls,  but  raised  to  infinity."  They  all  say 
with  Fdnelon :  "  Destroy  limitations,  and  you  will  dwell  in 
the  universality  of  Being."  Take  the  finite,  destroy  its 
limitations,  and  you  have  that  which  corresponds  to  it  in  the 
infinite.  And  they  determine  this  process  to  such  a  point 
that  they  apply  it  to  geometry,  and  renew  the  aspect  of 
mathematical  science  by  the  application.  We  shall  now 
endeavor  to  make  this  clear  by  details. 

DESCARTES. 

I. 

I  will  not  say, — 

11 At  last  Descartes  comes,  and,  the  first  in  France," 

founds  philosophy  by  restoring  freedom  to  human  reason. 
I  do  not  know  who  was  the  founder  of  philosophy,  and 
human  reason  had  been  free  for  many  centuries :  Jesus 
Christ  set  it  free,  with  the  entire  man. 

But  without  exaggerating  the  influence  of  Descartes,  it  is 
very  evident  that  he  imparted  a  great  and  fertile  movement 
to  his  century. 

I  must  confess  that  I  never  greatly  admired  his  Discourse 
on  Method.  I  see,  moreover,  as  all  admit,  and  as  the  Index 

1  1.  Deus  est  omnia  eminenter.     Quidquid  entitatis,  bonitatis,  perfections 
est  in  quacumque  creatura,  totum  es  eminentius  in  Deo. 

2  2.  Ad  coguitionem  Dei  oportet  uti  via  remotionis. 


190  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

has  decided,  that  Descartes  is  open  to  correction.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  regard  him  as  a  sceptic  and  a  wicked  spirit. 
Such  a  spirit  is  to  be  excluded,  not  corrected.  Clearly,  the 
methodic  doubt  of  Descartes  is  merely  a  vigorous  defiance 
of  scepticism.  "  I  am  called  a  sceptic,"  he  says  somewhere, 
"  because  I  have  fought  sceptics.  I  am  called  an  atheist, 
because  I  have  proved  the  existence  of  God."  Descartes 
claimed  to  sound  the  active  powers  of  reason,  and  to  reveal 
its  resources  ;  this  certainly  is  one  of  the  most  useful  tasks 
which  could  be  undertaken  for  the  benefit  of  mankind. 
Descartes  understands  what  Fe*nelon  says  later :  "  There  is 
far  greater  lack  of  reason  than  of  religion  in  this  world." 
He  knew  —  as  we  may  also  conclude  from  a  passage  in  the 
works  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  —  that  attacks  upon  reason 
are  still  more  dangerous  than  attacks  upon  faith,  because 
they  ruin  both  at  the  same  time,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  sacred 
edifice,  and  the  ground  on  which  it  stands.  He  labored  to 
prepare  the  way  for  that  future  prophesied  by  Leibnitz : 
"A  time  will  come  when  men  will  devote  themselves  to 
reason  far  more  than  hitherto."  He  showed  in  this  work  a 
matchless  energy,  an'  invincible  determination,  and  a  faith 
which  made  him  victorious. 

To  begin  with,  he  proceeded  at  once  to  the  heart  of 
philosophy,  to  the  basis  and  origin  of  reasoning,  which  is 
God ;  and  there  he  stood  fast  almost  throughout  his  career. 
Pascal  was  unjust  when  he  reproached  him  with  a  wish  to  do 
without  God  in  his  physical  researches.  Descartes  was  even 
then  pursuing  in  matter  the  laws,  that  is,  the  traces,  of  God. 
He  abstracted,  but  he  did  not  deny. 

Descartes  took  up  again,  stated  precisely,  and  simplified 
the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  —  that  living  proof  which 
is,  as  we  have  already  said,  the  act  and  fundamental  process 
of  the  rational  life.  If  the  way  in  which  Aristotle  set 
forth  his  proofs  made  them  dry  and  inapplicable  in  practice, 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    191 

it  is  not  so  with  the  work  of  Descartes.  Many  minds  have 
been  powerfully  impressed  and  uplifted  by  the  mighty  im- 
pulse of  his  vigorous  reasoning ;  and  we  might  quote  women, 
even  in  this  century,  whom  the  reading  of  Descartes  has  led 
to  the  most  ardent  piety,  by  the  direct  certainty  and  the 
species  of  intellectual  perception  of  God  derived  therefrom 
by  those  who  understand  what  they  read. 

II. 

The  true  Cartesian  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  rests 
upon  what  we  may  call  natural  prayer.  Natural  prayer  is 
the  impulse  of  the  soul,  which  feels  that  it  is  limited  and 
imperfect,  towards  the  infinite  which  it  conceives  and  de- 
sires. This  prayer,  or  this  impulse  of  the  soul,  which  rises 
to  God  through  desire  and  thought,  and  which  proves  his 
existence  by  thinking  of  and  desiring  him,  is  contained  in 
these  words,  which  we  quote  in  full :  "  Not  only  do  I  know 
that  I  am  an  imperfect,  incomplete  thing,  dependent  on 
another,  ever  tending  and  aspiring  towards  something  greater 
and  better  than  I  am,  but  I  also  know  that  he  on  whom  I 
depend  possesses  in  himself  all  those  great  things  towards 
which  I  aspire,  the  ideas  of  which  I  find  within  myself," 
and  that  he  possesses  them  "  not  indefinitely  and  potentially 
alone,  but  actually  and  infinitely,  and  thus  that  he  is  God."  1 

These  profound  words  contain  the  conditions  of  the  true 
proof  in  the  most  precise  and  explicit  form  :  (1)  the  point  of 
support,  which  is  the  finite  being  whom  we  see  and  whom 
we  are ;  (2)  the  moral  condition,  or  the  motive  spring,  — 
namely,  the  moral  life,  which  consists,  speaking  exactly, 
in  constantly  tending  and  aspiring  towards  something  better 
and  greater ;  that  is,  in  yielding  to  the  charm  of  the  su- 
preme Good  ;  (3)  the  process,  that  is,  the  advance  of  reason 
from  disdain  of  the  imperfect  to  the  idea  of  infinite  perfection. 

1  Descartes,  Third  Meditation,  near  close. 


192  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

"  There  are  but  two  ways,"  says  Descartes,  "  in  which  we 
can  prove  that  there  is  a  God,  —  namely,  one  by  his  works, 
and  the  other  by  his  essence."  l  That  is  to  say,  there  is 
the  experimental  proof  and  the  rational  proof,  —  the  proof 
a  posteriori,  and  the  proof  a  priori.  We  have  already  ex- 
plained that  the  two  proofs  combined  form  the  unassailable 
proof. 

Now,  in  the  words  of  Descartes  already  quoted,  the  two 
proofs  are  in  one.  It  should  be  so,  because  God  is  the 
Being  in  whom  ideality  and  reality  are  identical. 

Descartes,  it  is  true,  afterwards  elaborates  them  separately, 
and  sometimes,  perhaps,  seems  to  lose  sight  of  their  unity  ; 
nevertheless,  he  does  not  break  the  connecting  link,  they 
are  always  united  in  his  thought. 

He  states  the  first  one  thus :  "  The  existence  of  God  is 
demonstrated  by  his  works  from  the  mere  fact  that  his  idea 
is  innate  in  us."2 

He  states  the  second  thus  :  "  We  may  prove  that  there  is 
a  God  from  the  mere  fact  that  the  necessity  of  being  or 
existence  is  included  in  our  notion  of  him."  3 

Let  us  try  to  set  forth  the  double  rational  and  experimen- 
tal proof  contained  in  this  double  proof,  to  show  the  pro- 
found unity  of  the  two,  and  their  absolute  certainty  when 
we  do  not  isolate  them. 


III. 

We  are  not  now  demonstrating ;  we  are  showing,  we  are 
setting  forth,  we  are  striving  to  place  these  truths  before 
the  eye  of  the  mind,  —  the  mind  which  will  see  and  com- 
prehend them. 

I  think,  I  am.     My  thought  is  imperfect,  because  it  hesi- 

1  Reply  to  the  First  Objection,   i.  395. 

2  Medit.,  i.  293.  »  Ibid.,  iii.  72. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    193 

tates,  doubts,  and  mistakes ;  my  being  is  imperfect,  limited, 
finite;  I  see  it  and  I  feel  it. 

What  is  it  to  see  and  feel  that  my  being  is  finite  ?  It  is 
to  see,  in  seeing  the  finite,  the  infinity  by  contrast. 

My  whole  being  tends  and  aspires  towards  something 
greater  and  better  than  myself ;  and  not  only  does  it  now 
aspire  thus,  but  we  see  plainly  that  it  will  always  thus 
aspire,  —  that  is,  it  always  aspires  towards  something  greater 
than  any  given  greatness.  But  something  greater  than  any 
given  or  assignable  greatness  is  infinity.  Thus,  my  life  is  a 
tendency  towards  the  infinite. 

It  is  evident  that  this  is  true  of  every  upright  mind  and 
healthy  will.  A  perverse  will,  a  corrupt  mind,  far  from  tend- 
ing towards  the  infinite,  tends  towards  lesser  being,  or  noth- 
ingness :  all  true  philosophers  have  noted  this.  There  i»  a 
moral  as  well  as  an  intellectual  condition  for  this  conception 
of  the  mind  and  this  tendency  of  life  towards  infinity. 

But  this  condition  presupposed,  it  being  no  other  than  a 
healthy  state  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  being,  that  moral 
and  intellectual  being,  finite  and  imperfect  as  it  is,  coneeives, 
from  the  very  perception  of  its  own  imperfection,  perfection  ; 
and  it  is  drawn  towards  the  perfect  being  by  the  very  centre 
of  its  own  being  and  the  root  of  its  life.  Moreover,  this 
is  only  what  Aristotle  says  when  he  speaks  of  the  first 
motionless  motor  which  moves  everything  by  its  attraction, 
—  the  attraction  of  desirability  and  of  intelligibility. 

The  attraction  of  the  sovereign  Good  is  felt  by  all  men : 
every  philosopher,  every  theologian,  every  man  who  uses  his 
reason,  sees  this  and  says  it.  It  is  a  truth  at  once  rational 
and  experimental ;  it  is  a  moral  law,  as  real  and  scientific  as 
that  of  the  universal  attraction  of  bodies. 

God  is  at  the  same  time  desirable  and  intelligible,  —  two 
qualities  which  are  but  one  in  him :  as  desirable  and  as 
intelligible,  he  attracts  all  souls;  and  this  actual  effect  of 

13 


194  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

God  within  us  is  called  either  the  attraction  of  the  sovereign 
Good,  the  natural  and  universal  desire  for  happiness,  or  the 
natural  knowledge  of  God,  or  else  the  innate  idea  of  God,  or 
yet  again,  the  divine  sense. 

The  last  expression  is  the  simplest,  most  complete  and 
exact ;  it  includes  and  amends  the  others :  the  others  are 
somewhat  exclusive,  and  refer  either  to  the  intelligible  alone, 
or  to  the  desirable  alone  ;  this,  from  its  complex  meaning,  is 
relative  to  both  aspects.  Like  sensation  itself,  which  is,  as 
has  been  remarked,  both  representative  and  affective,  the 
divine  sense  implies  two  elements,  —  an  element  of  knowl- 
edge and  an  element  of  love  ;  the  divine  sense  is  both  intel- 
lectual and  moral,  its  cause  being  both  intelligible  and 
desirable,  —  as  we  are  both  intelligence  and  will.  Moreover, 
the  divine  sense  implies  these  elements,  but  does  not  explain 
them ;  it  gives  a  vague  attraction  and  a  confused  idea,  as 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  observes ;  it  is,  as  Aristotle  says,  a 
power  close  at  hand,  ready  to  burst  forth,  but  only  bursting 
forth  when  the  obstacle  is  removed.  God,  by  his  presence, 
makes  us  this  gift,  which  is  innate,  continual,  universal. 
The  gift  has  been  made :  it  is  put  into  our  hands ;  it 
remains  for  us  to  accept  it  with  our  reason  and  our  free- 
dom ;  it  remains  for  us  to  render  explicit  within  us,  by 
reason,  the  confused  idea  of  God,  and  by  freedom,  the  vague 
attraction  towards  God.  The  corrupt  spirit,  the  perverted 
intellect,  changes  the  confused  idea  into  a  thousand  mon- 
strous errors,  —  into  general  idolatry.  A  perverted  will 
changes  the  vague  attraction  into  corrupting  passions.  We 
have  our  choice  ;  there  is  the  act,  both  rational  and  free, 
which  we  must  call  the  fundamental  act  of  both  intellectual 
and  moral  life.  From  the  finite  being  which  he  sees,  which 
he  is,  which  exists  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  not  beyond  it, 
man  may  infer  Being  or  nothing.  Stimulated  by  the  divine 
sense,  which  urges  him  towards  the  Absolute  from  the  one 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    195 

side  or  the  other,  man  decides  the  direction  in  which  he  will 
be  urged,  and  chooses  his  own  conclusion.  One  man  con- 
cludes in  infinite  Being,  another  in  non-being;  one  asserts 
the  existence  of  Good,  the  other,  of  evil ;  one  says  God,  the 
other,  nothing.  This  is  what  actually,  historically,  takes 
place  in  the  bottom  of  every  man's  heart. 

In  this  inner  history  of  the  soul's  relation  to  God  we 
should  always  read  and  study  the  proof  of  the  existence  of 
God.  There  we  find  it  at  once  and  inseparably  moral  and 
intellectual,  rational  and  experimental,  and  conceive  of  God 
felt  through  his  effects  in  the  living  reality,  and  seen  by  the 
essential  idea  which  he  puts  within  us. 

It  is  therefore  clear  how  the  idea  of  infinite,  necessary 
Being  is  actually  developed  in  the  mind  as  soon  as  the  will 
yields  to  the  moral  attraction  which  implies  it,  and  how  this 
idea  comes,  by  virtue  of  that  infinite,  necessary  Being  which 
shows  itself  as  intelligible,  after  having  made  itself  felt  as 
desirable. 

-And  here,  as  Descartes  says,  is  the  point  "chiefly  to  be 
considered,  and  upon  which  all  the  force  and  all  the  light, 
or  the  intelligence,  of  this  argument  depend." 1  In  fact, 
God  himself  makes  himself  visible  in  his  idea.  In  a  certain 
way  it  is  God  that  we  see.  Henceforth  we  are  sure  that  he 
exists,  since  we  see  him.  Herein  lies  the  depth  and  solidity 
of  the  proof. 

Descartes  and  all  the  great  school  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, in  harmony,  moreover,  with  the  philosophy  of  the  past, 
maintain  that,  in  the  idea  of  God,  it  is  God  who  shows  him- 
self, and  that  in  a  certain  sense  we  see  him.  "  The  idea  is 
the  thing  itself  conceived" 2  Descartes  constantly  says,  — 
an  excellent  phrase,  which  implies  this  axiom,  accepted  by 
Descartes,  "  All  that  is  ideal  is  real,  all  that  is  real  is  ideal : " 
a  profound  truth,  but  one  which  should  be  thoroughly  un- 

i  Vol.  i.  p.  375.  2  Ibid.,  p.  370. 


196  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

derstood,  for  we  may  carry  it  to  an  absurd  conclusion,  as 
the  Germans  do  at  the  present  day. 

IV. 

Descartes  and  the  seventeenth  century,  we  say,  concede 
that  in  the  idea  of  God  it  is,  in  a  fashion,  God  whom  we 
see.  In  what  fashion  ?  This  is  the  only  question.  Is  God 
seen  directly  in  himself?  Or  is  God  seen  indirectly  in  the 
soul  ? 

Descartes  grasps  the  truth  in  regard  to  this  question. 
Malebranche  and  others  go  too  far.  What  is  the  idea  of 
God,  according  to  Descartes  ?  Is  it  God  ?  Is  it  ourselves  ? 
It  is  both  God  and  ourselves,  seen  at  the  same  time ;  or 
rather,  it  is  my  soul,  seen  in  the  light  of  God:  I  see  my  soul 
directly ;  I  see  it  in  the  light  of  God,  without  which  every- 
thing is  invisible,  and  I  see  God,  who  is  that  light,  but  by 
a  reflected  ray. 

Descartes  maintains  that  the  idea  is  the  thing  itself  con- 
ceived} which  he  explains  thus:  — 

"  The  idea  of  God  is  God  himself,  existing  in  the  understanding, 
—  not,  it  is  true,  formally,  as  he  is  intrinsically,  but  objectively, 
that  is,  in  the  way  that  objects  usually  exist  in  the  understanding. 
This  existence  in  the  understanding  is  not  a  mere  nothing.2  It  is 
not  something  feigned  by  the  mind,  not,  as  the  saying  is,  an  im- 
aginary being ;  it  is  something  real  which  is  distinctly  conceived, 
and  which,  certainly,  requires  some  cause  other  than  the  under- 
standing for  its  conception.  Thus  we  must  regard  the  objective 
reality  which  exists  in  the  idea  of  God ;  its  cause  can  only  be  an 
actually  existing  God.  Yes,  for  the  very  reason  that  we  have 
within  us  the  idea  of  God,  in  which  all  conceivable  perfection  is 
contained,  we  may  very  clearly  infer  thence  that  this  idea  depends 
upon  and  proceeds  from  some  cause  which  actually  contains  in  it- 
self all  this  perfection  ;  namely,  an  actually  existing  God."  * 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  370.  -  Ibid.,  p.  371.  8  Ibid.,  pp.  373,  374. 


THEODICY    OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    197 

All  this  is  true,  unless  it  be  that  Descartes  does  not  ex- 
plain with  sufficient  distinctness  that,  in  the  idea  of  God,  it 
is  the  light  itself  of  God  which  we  see  wholly  in  the  soul, 
or  the  soul  which  we  see  in  the  light  of  God.  He  comes 
closer  to  it  in  what  follows :  "  This  idea  is  imprinted  in  a 
similar  fashion  upon  every  human  mind,  .  .  .  and  therefore 
we  suppose  that  it  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  our  mind, 
and  certainly  not  improperly ;  but  we  forget  one  thing,  which 
we  ought  chiefly  to  consider,  and  on  which  all  the  force  and 
all  the  light  or  intelligence  of  this  argument  depends,  which 
is  that  this  faculty  of  having  in  one's  self  the  idea  of  God 
could  not  le  in  us  if  our  mind  were  only  a  finite  thing, 
as  it  actually  is,  and  if  it  had  not,  as  the  cause  of  its  being, 
a  cause  which  was  God," l  that  is  to  say,  infinite.  This  is  of 
the  utmost  importance.  Thus  we  see  something  finite  and 
something  infinite ;  any  perception  which  we  have  of  the 
infinite  is  an  effect  of  which  God  is  the  cause,  or  rather  it  is 
God  himself,  thought.2  It  is  God  indirectly  perceived,  God 
seen,  not  in  himself,  but  in  the  mirror  of  the  mind.  Des- 
cartes explains  his  meaning  still  better :  "  And,  in  fact,  it  is 
not  strange  that  God,  in  creating  me,  should  impress  me  with 
this  idea,  to  be  as  it  were  the  Maker's  mark  stamped  upon 
his  work ;  and  neither  is  it  necessary  that  this  mark  should 
be  anything  different  from  that  work  itself ;  for  the  mere 
reason  that  God  created  me  it  is  very  credible  that  he  should 
in  some  measure  make  me  after  his  own  image  and  likeness, 
in  which  the  idea  of  God  is  contained,  and  that  I  should 
know  him  ly  the  same  faculty  ly  which  I  know  myself" 

Descartes  therefore  plainly  understands  it  thus :  the  idea 
of  God  is  God  and  myself,  —  or  rather  it  is  my  soul  seen  in 
the  light  of  God ;  this  idea  implies  a  finite  element,  which  is 
my  soul,  and  an  infinite  element,  which  is  the  light  of  God, 
whom  I  see,  and  in  which  I  at  the  same  time  see  my  soul  by 
the  same  faculty. 

1  Vol.  L  p.  375.  2  Medit.  III.  (close). 


198  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

Hence  it  is  evident  that  "this  idea  is  not  something 
feigned  or  invented,  dependent  only  on  my  thought,  but 
that  it  is  the  image  of  a  true  and  immutable  nature." 1 

And  let  no  one  say  that  Descartes  here  falls  into  a  famil- 
iar trap,  and  treats  the  idea  of  God  degradingly,  by  calling  it 
an  image.  Descartes  is  as  far  from  this  as  possible.  Hear 
what  he  says  further :  "  Assuredly  I  do  not  think  that  this 
idea  is  of  the  same  nature  as  the  images  of  material  things 
painted  in  phantasy ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  it 
can  only  be  conceived  by  the  understanding,  and  that,  indeed, 
it  is  only  that  very  thing  which  we  perceive  through  its  means 
(by  means  of  the  understanding),  either  when  it  conceives,  or 
when  it  judges,  or  when  it  reasons"  2  This  is  both  exact  and 
true.  The  very  light  of  thought  —  I  mean  the  light  which 
illumines  my  thought,  and  without  which  I  cannot  think  — 
is  God  himself.  Malebranche  would  be  satisfied  with  this, 
and  we  should  not  concede  him  an  iota  too  much. 

Descartes  develops  this  still  further  elsewhere :  "  The 
rule  which  I  have  established  —  namely,  that  the  things 
which  we  conceive  very  clearly  and  very  distinctly  are  all 
true  —  is  only  secure  because  God  exists,  and  is  a  perfect 
being,  and  all  which  is  in  us  comes  from  him ;  whence  it 
follows  that  our  ideas  or  notions  being  real  things,  and  pro- 
ceeding from  God,  in  all  wherein  they  are  clear  and  distinct 
they  can  be  no  other  than  true." 

Thus,  according  to  Descartes,  it  is  in  our  soul  that  we  see 
God :  this  vision  of  the  soul,  the  image  of  God,  actually  en- 
lightened by  God,  without  which  it  would  not  be  visible,  is 
the  idea  of  God.  Our  idea  of  God,  therefore,  includes  the 
direct  vision  of  our  soul  enlightened  by  God,  and  the  indirect 
vision  of  God  who  enlightens  the  soul.  The  idea  of  the  per- 
fect Being  is  placed  in  us  by  the  perfect  Being.  The  idea  of 
the  perfect  Being  is  an  effect  which  transcends  the  power  of 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  316.  *  ibid.,  p.  425. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    199 

an  imperfect  being :  I  can  conceive  it,  but  only  under  the 
influence  of  the  perfect  Being.  I  can  see  in  a  glass  the  sun 
which  is  not  actually  there,  but  I  could  not  see  it  if  the  sun 
did  not  exist,  and  did  not  cast  its  image  into  the  glass.  The 
idea  of  God  is  God  seen  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul,  —  a  com- 
parison so  true,  so  profound,  so  exact,  that  none  who  do  not 
understand  it  can  know  what  an  idea  is. 


V. 

Having  said  this,  let  us  again  take  up  Descartes'  two 
proofs,  —  his  proof  a  priori  and  his  proof  a  posteriori. 

1.  I  have  the  idea  of  a  perfect  Being,  therefore  he  exists; 
for  this  idea  implies  his  existence. 

2.  I  have  the  idea  of  a  perfect  Being,  therefore  he  exists ; 
for  he  only  could  have  placed  this  idea  in  me. 

In  themselves,  and  properly,  these  two  proofs  are  true, 
and  each  sustains  itself  separately.  In  fact,  relatively  to 
us,  they  form  but  one,  and  are  mutually  sustained. 

The  first,  which  is  Saint  Anselrn's  proof,  to  which  Descartes 
with  justice  clings  so  closely,  is  true  in  itself ;  for  it  is  true 
that  God  is  the  necessary  Being.  If  he  is  the  necessary  Being, 
that  means  that  it  is  of  his  essence  actually  to  exist;  his 
being  and  his  essence  are  identical,  as  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas 
shows ;  in  him  real  and  ideal  are  identical ;  his  idea  is  his 
being;  whoever  knows  what  God  is,  sees  that  he  is  by  es- 
sence ;  whoever  knows  what  every  being,  other  than  God,  is, 
sees  that  those  beings  do  not  exist  by  essence,  that  is  to  say, 
are  not  necessary.  The  true  idea  of  any  being  whatsoever, 
except  God,  implies  the  possibility  of  that  being;  the  true 
idea  of  God  implies,  rigorously  speaking,  his  necessary  exist- 
ence, his  actual  reality,  as  the  idea  of  a  triangle  implies  the 
equality  of  the  three  angles  to  two  right  angles. 

From  the  very  idea  of  perfection  and  infinity,  as  Descartes 


200  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

constantly  repeats,  it  follows  that  this  perfect  and  infinite 
Being  exists :  the  idea  of  infinite  Being  implies  that  of  neces- 
sary existence.  For  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  words,  "  The 
perfect  and  infinite  Being?"  They  signify  absolute  Being, 
that  is,  Being  itself.  For  to  speak  of  Being  simply,  is  to 
speak  of  Absolute  Being,  as  Saint  Augustine  truly  remarks. 
Now,  would  it  not  be  the  most  violent  and  absurd  of  all  con- 
tradictory propositions  to  say:  Being  is  not?  Therefore, 
Being  is,  that  is,  the  absolute,  perfect,  and  infinite  Being, 
that  is,  God,  is. 

Descartes  confesses,  and  we  must  admit,  that  at  first  sight 
this  argument,  that  the  mere  idea  of  the  infinite  and  perfect 
Being  implies  the  idea  of  necessary  existence,  seems  a  soph- 
ism to  those  who  do  not  fathom  it.  The  reason,  *he  says,  is 
this :  "  We  are  so  accustomed  in  all  other  things  to  distin- 
guish existence  from  essence  that  we  do  not  consider  how  it 
appertains  to  the  essence  of  God  rather  than  to  that  of  other 
things.  .  .  .  But  we  must  make  a  distinction  between  possible 
and  necessary  existence,  and  observe  that  possible  existence 
is  included  in  the  notion  or  idea  of  all  things  of  which  we 
conceive  clearly  or  distinctly,  but  that  necessary  existence  is 
included  in  the  idea  of  God  alone." a 

Therefore  the  existence  of  God  is  at  once  an  actual  truth, 
a  reality;  and  a  rational  truth,  a  necessary  idea  a  priori, 
which  is  not  true  of  any  other  existence.  Not  only  does  God 
exist,  but  he  must  exist,  which  is  not  true  of  any  other  being. 
It  is  as  much  a  necessity,  says  Descartes,  as  the  fact  that  the 
three  angles  of  a  triangle  equal  two  right  angles.  It  is  just 
as  necessary,  and  even  clearer,  says  Descartes,  and  he  says 
truly ;  for  the  proposition,  Being  is,  is  clearer  than  that  the 
three  angles  of  a  triangle  equal  two  right  angles.  It  is  plain 
that  Being  is ;  and  Being  is  God. 

All  this,  therefore,  is  intrinsically  true ;  but  is  all  this  a 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  390. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    201 

proof  relatively  to  us,  to  every  mind,  to  man  as  he  comes 
into  this  world  ?  As  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  remarks,  if  we 
do  not  already  know  what  God  is,  if  we  have  not  his  true 
idea,  how  can  we  know  that  his  essence  implies  his  existence, 
as  the  idea  of  a  triangle  implies  the  equality  of  the  three 
angles  to  two  right  angles  ?  We  must  first  have  his  idea, 
true,  real,  and  living,  that  is  to  say,  enacted  and  caused  in  us 
by  him.  He  gives  us  that  divine  sense  which  implies  the 
true  idea,  —  divine  sense,  natural  rational  faith,  or  innate 
idea,  as  so  many  gifted  minds  express  it;  confused  knowl- 
edge, as  Saint  Thomas  says  ;  vague  thought,  as  Leibnitz  says : 
this  is  the  germ  given  by  God.  But  how  is  this  germ  set 
free  ?  Ordinarily,  it  is  set  free  by  the  word  of  another :  an- 
other mind,  by  its  word,  is  the  father  of  mine,  and  sets  in 
action  that  divine  sense  which  is  the  first  potentiality  of 
the  idea  of  God.  This  proximate  potentiality  passes  into 
act  under  the  influence  of  speech,  if  my  mind  responds  to  it ; 
that  is  to  say,  if  my  reason,  by  the  power  which  is  in  it,  rises 
to  the  meaning  of  the  word.  And  reason  has  this  power 
naturally,  because  it  is  the  light  which  illumines  every  man 
coming  into  the  world,  and  because,  starting  from  God,  it 
"seeks  God.  But  the  moral  obstacle  must  not  arrest  it  in  this 
spontaneous  energy  of  its  impulse  towards  the  infinite.  If, 
therefore,  the  spirit,  under  the  inner  influence  of  the  divine 
sense  and  the  outer  influence  of  the  word,  responds,  by  an 
act  of  moral  and  intellectual  consent,  to  the  light  which  God 
shows  it,  and  which  is  God,  the  mind  then  has  the  true  idea 
of  God,  in  which  it  can  clearly  see,  by  a  throng  of  reasons, 
that  existence  is  implied. 

Thus  it  is  that  Descartes'  two  proofs  are  actually  insep- 
arable to  us,  and  constitute  but  one.  The  proof  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  derived  from  the  idea  alone,  is  clear  and  proved 
to  us  only  when  we  have  the  idea  of  God.  Now,  the  ob- 
taining of  this  idea  of  God  supposes  an  experimental  pos- 


202  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

tulate,  and  also  a  moral  condition,  which  is  the  starting- 
point  of  the  second  proof.  At  the  same  time,  the  moral 
and  experimental  condition  does  not  suffice.  It  is  essential 
that  the  divine  sense,  or,  if  you  prefer,  the  real  attraction  of 
the  desirable  and  intelligible,  felt  by  the  soul,  should  come  into 
the  light ;  our  reason  must  take  possession  of  it.  Seeing  this 
faint  light  of  the  implicit  idea  of  God,  —  that  is  to  say,  see- 
ing our  soul,  wherein  God  shines,  —  reason  must  distinguish 
the  light  from  the  glass,  God  from  the  soul,  the  infinite  from 
the  finite,  and  the  perfect  from  the  imperfect;  to  the  end 
that  it  may  assert  the  infinite  at  the  same  time  that  it  sees 
the  finite. 

Theoretically,  the  dim  idea  of  infinity  passes  into  light  by 
the  following  degrees.  We  feel  at  first,  simultaneously  and 
obscurely,  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  God  and  the  soul,  life 
itself  being  only  the  harmony  of  the  two ;  soon  we  see  clearly 
the  finite,  but  not  as  such,  not  as  imperfect ;  then  the  dim 
sense  of  the  infinite,  or  perfection,  leads  us  to  see  the  finite, 
or  our  soul,  as  imperfect;  the  sight  of  the  finite  as  imper- 
fect leads  us  to  a  clear  conception,  by  contrast,  of  infinity 
and  perfection.  And  this  knowledge  of  perfection,  or 
of  God,  bears  in  itself  the  double  assurance  of  the  exist- 
ence of  its  object,  first  because  it  is  experimental,  then 
because  it  is  recognized,  when  once  it  is  possessed,  as  being 
necessarily  rational,  so  that  the  opposite  statement  implies 
contradiction. 

Thus,  to  sum  all  this  up  once  more,  I  see  God  in  my  soul 
as  in  a  glass ;  this  sight  is  experimental,  like  sensation ;  this 
sublime  sense  of  God,  to  produce  an  actual  emotion,  requires 
a  moral  condition ;  this  emotion,  in  order  to  pass  into  light, 
supposes  an  act  of  reason.  This  act  of  reason  divides  the 
infinite  from  the  finite,  and  the  light,  which  is  God,  from  the 
mirror  wherein  it  appears,  which  is  ourself. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    203 


VI. 

It  remains  for  us  to  clear  up  a  single  point.  Did  Des- 
cartes regard  this  act  of  reason  as  a  simple,  spontaneous  act, 
a  sort  of  direct  intuition  of  which  nothing  more  can  be  said, 
or  is  it  performed  by  some  process  which  may  be  described  ? 
According  to  Descartes,  there  is  a  process,  although  this  pro- 
cess is  by  no  means  complicated.  This  process  is  Plato's 
dialectic ;  it  is  that  of  which  Saint  Thomas  says :  "  To  know 
God,  we  must  employ  a  process  of  elimination." 

Just  as  the  will,  under  the  charm  of  desirability,  through 
regret  at  its  own  imperfection,  desires  perfection,  so  too  the 
intellect,  in  the  light  of  intelligibility,  at  the  sight  of  the 
finite,  by  the  negation  of  limitations,  raises  itself  to  the  idea 
of  the  infinite.  The  assertion  of  all  that  is  positive  in  the 
finite,  with  the  negation  of  its  limitation,  an  assertion  which 
raises  this  negation  to  the  infinite,  —  such  is  the  process. 

Descartes  aptly  remarks  that  this  process  gives,  at  one 
stroke,  not  only  the  existence  of  God,  but  moreover  the 
knowledge,  in  so  far  as  we  can  obtain  it,  of  what  God  is.1 
"  We  also  acquire,  through  proving  in  this  way  the  existence 
of  God,  the  advantage  that  we  are  made  acquainted,  by  the 
selfsame  means,  with  what  he  is,  in  so  far  as  the  weakness  of 
our  nature  permits ;  for  in  reflecting  upon  the  idea  which 
we  actually  have  of  God,  we  see  that  he  is  eternal,  omnis- 
cient, omnipotent,  the  source  of  goodness  and  truth,  the 
creator  of  all  things,  and  in  fact  that  he  possesses  in  him- 
self all  perfection,  or  the  absence  of  all  imperfection."2 

And  this  by  the  following  process :  "  According  to  the 
trains  of  reasoning  just  made,  to  know  the  nature  of  God, 
in  so  far  as  my  own  is  capable  of  so  doing,  I  had  but  to  con- 
sider, concerning  all  the  things  any  idea  of  which  I  found  in 
1  Principles,  p.  235.  2  j^d.,  p.  239. 


204  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

me,  whether  it  was  or  was  not  a  perfection  to  possess  them ; 
and  I  was  assured  that  none  of  them,  possessed  of  any  imper- 
fection, was  to  be  found  in  him,  but  that  all  the  others 
were." l  He  asserts  all  perfection  and  denies  all  imperfec- 
tion. He  denies  of  God  all  those  negative  ideas  "which  pro- 
ceed from  nothingness  ;  that  is  to  say,  which  are  in  me  only 
because  something  is  lacking  in  my  nature,  and  it  is  not 
wholly  perfect." 2  I  deny  those  negative  ideas,  which  are 
only  in  me  "inasmuch  as  I  have  defects."3  I  affirm  the 
real  and  positive  idea  of  God,  or  of  a  supremely  perfect 
Being.  I  deny  the  negative  idea  of  nothingness,  that  is, 
"of  that  which  is  infinitely  removed  from  any  kind  of 
perfection."  4  I  efface  all  limitations  in  whatever  I  find  in 
me  that  is  positive.  I  see  my  knowledge  grow ;  but  it 
will  always  be  limited;  I  must  destroy  my  limitations  in 
order  to  conceive  of  God's  actual  infinity.  For  "  although 
my  knowledge  may  increase  more  and  more,  nevertheless 
I  know  that  it  can  never  be  actually  infinite,  since  it  will 
never  reach  so  high  a  degree  of  perfection  as  to  be  incapable 
of  greater  increase.  But  I  conceive  of  God  as  actually  in- 
finite to  so  high  a  degree  that  nothing  can  be  added  to  the 
sovereign  perfection  which  he  possesses."5 

We  see,  therefore,  what  there  is  in  us  that  is  positive,  and 
we  raise  it  to  the  infinite.  "  Thus,  the  idea  which  we  have, 
for  instance,  of  the  divine  understanding  does  not  seem  to 
me  to  differ  from  that  which  we  have  of  our  own  under- 
standing, save  only  as  the  idea  of  infinite  number  differs 
from  the  idea  of  binary  or  ternary  number;  and  it  is  the 
same  with  all  the  attributes  of  God,  some  vestiges  of  which 
we  recognize  in  ourselves.6  .  .  .  And  we  know  that  none  of  the 
things  which  we  conceive  to  be  in  God  and  in  ourselves, 
and  which  we  consider  separately  in  him  as  if  they  were 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  151.  3  Ibid.  6  Ibid.,  p.  283. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  278.  *  Ibid.,  p.  295.  6  Ibid.,  p.  422. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.   205 

distinct,  because  of  the  weakness  of  our  understanding  and 
because  we  experience  them  so  in  ourselves,  belong  to  God 
and  to  us  in  the  way  which  is  called  in  the  schools  uni- 
vocal"1  That  is,  we  must  in  some  sort  transpose  them 
from  ourselves  to  God  in  conceiving  their  "  immensity,  sim- 
plicity, and  absolute  unity." 2  "  Unity  and  immensity  we 
conceive  without  ourselves  possessing  them,  but  God  him- 
self impresses  them  upon  us,  like  the  workman's  mark 
stamped  upon  his  work."  3  Upon  which  Descartes  very  aptly 
remarks  that  this  process  gives  us  a  certain  precise  knowl- 
edge of  what  God  is.  Doubtless,  according  to  Descartes,  I 
do  not  comprehend  the  infinite,  but  I  apprehend  it.  "  For 
to  apprehend  clearly  and  distinctly  that  a  thing  is  such  that 
it  is  unlimited  at  every  point,  is  clearly  to  apprehend  that  it 
is  infinite."4  Now,  thoroughly  distinguishing  between  the 
indefinite  and  the  infinite,  Descartes  adds  this  most  impor- 
tant assertion :  "  And  there  is  nothing  which  I  can  properly 
call  infinite,  save  that  in  which  I  can  find  no  limits  at  any 
point ;  in  which  sense  God  alone  is  infinite."  5 

Such  is  the  description  of  the  speculative  process  :  in  see- 
ing the  finite,  to  efface  all  limitations,  and  thus  affirm  to 
infinity  everything  positive  found  there. 

As  for  the  practical  and  total  process,  Descartes  himself 
describes  it  thus:  "I  will  now  close  my  eyes,  stop  my  ears, 
I  will  efface  from  my  very  thoughts  all  images  of  material 
things,  or  at  least  —  because  this  can  hardly  be  done  —  I  will 
esteem  them  false  and  empty,  and  thus  communing  with 
myself  alone,  I  will  try  to  become  better  acquainted  and 
more  intimate  with  myself." 

"I  am  a  thing  that  thinks,  that  doubts,  that  affirms,  that 
denies,  that  understands  some  few  things,  that  is  ignorant  of 
many,  that  loves,  that  hates,  that  desires,  that  desires  not." 6 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  412.  8  Ibid.  5  Ibid. 

2  Ibid.  *  Ibid.,  385.  6  Ibid.,  p.  263. 


206  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

This  is  the  beginning  of  the  Third  Meditation,  wherein  we 
recognize  exactly  the  process  of  the  ascetics  and  con  tern  pla- 
tors,  who  say,  "Forsake  the  exterior;  leave  the  world  of 
sense,  enter  into  yourselves ;  know  yourselves ;  know  your 
miseries;  and  from  the  knowledge  of  your  miseries  rise 
higher:  go  to  God."  This  is  the  course  of  prayer. 

Thus  Descartes  saw  plainly  how  the  human  mind  ascends 
to  God. 

VII. 

We  perceive  but  one  break  in  all  this.  Descartes  says 
nothing  of  the  great  distinction  between  the  two  regions 
of  the  world  of  intelligibility,  nor  of  what  Pascal,  Plato,  and 
Saint  Augustine  call  the  last  step  of  reason.  This  is  because 
Descartes  had  resolved,  as  he  often  says,  riot  to  touch  on 
theology,  but  to  keep  to  pure  philosophy. 

We  all  know  the  active  faith  and  ardent  piety  of  Descartes ; 
and  if  Christina  of  Sweden,  his  pupil,  could  quit  a  throne  to 
return  to  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  that  rare  strength  of 
conviction  was  in  part  derived  from  the  lessons  of  the 
philosopher  and  Christian  whom  she  admired.  Therefore 
Descartes  knew  whither  reason  must  lead  us.  But  he  had 
his  views.  This  energetic  friend  of  truth  wished  to  conse- 
crate his  life  to  reinforcing  all  truth,  by  essaying  to  educate 
reason  taken  in  itself. 

Like  his  methodic  doubt,  this  rigorous  separation  of  the 
purely  rational  order  was  on  his  part  a  manoauvre :  in  that 
great  contest  which  the  spirit  of  truth  wages  with  the  ever- 
recurring  shadows  of  doubt,  ignorance,  and  unbelief,  he 
tried  to  oppose  reason  alone  to  the  enemy.  At  this  period, 
men  were  beginning  to  attack  faith  in  the  name  of  reason, 
and  reason  in  the  name  of  faith.  Protestants  and  Jansenists 
had  almost  denied  reason  and  the  order  of  natural  knowl- 
edge. Others  — free  thinkers,  as  they  were  called  —  denied 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    207 

faith.  The  structure  of  Scholasticism,  that  admirable  com- 
bination of  divine  and  human  light,  was  attacked  on  both 
sides.  Aristotle  was  pursued  into  the  bosom  of  the  theol- 
ogy with  which  he  had  meddled,  and  even  into  reason 
itself,  —  reason  and  faith  being  frequently  wounded,  under 
pretext  of  reaching  Aristotle. 

Very  well !  said  Descartes,  —  destroy  this  temple,  and  it 
will  be  rebuilt ;  overthrow  everything,  and  it  shall  be  lifted 
again.  When  everything  is  dashed  to  the  ground,  will  it  be 
less  true  that  we  think  and  that  we  exist  ?  Now,  with  that 
one  truth,  all  others  can  be  restored.  The  entire  order  of 
rational  truths  will  be  re-established,  reason  will  be  restored, 
and  reason,  again  raised  up,  will  soon  recover  the  grand 
foundations  of  faith,  and  accept  the  whole  order  of  divine 
truths. 

So  Descartes  thought ;  but  it  is  not  generally  known  that 
at  the  same  date  many  theologians,  on  their  side,  were  effect- 
ing the  same  movement.  "  Make  a  clean  separation  of  the 
two  orders,"  was  the  cry ;  "  give  up  that  lawless  use  of  scholas- 
tic theology  which  attempts  to  explain  our  mysteries  to  the 
faithful.  Our  mysteries  are  inexplicable."  We  find  a  very 
curious  indication  in  this  respect  in  Re*gis. 

"  This  disorder,"  he  says  in  his  concordance  of  faith  and  of 
reason,  —  "  this  disorder,  which  proceeded  rather  from  theo- 
logians than  from  Theology,  had  prevailed  in  past  centuries, 
but  it  has  at  last  been  remedied  in  ours,  where  we  see 
theology  more  purified,  and  treated  with  greater  dignity 
than  formerly.  .  .  .  Less  heed  is  now  paid  to  argument 
than  to  authority.  .  .  .  The  historic  bases  of  Christianity 
are  proved,  like  truths  of  fact,  and  thereby  those  who  have 
admitted  them  are  brought  even  to  belief  in  the  Trinity  and 
all  the  other  mysteries.  .  .  .  Philosophic  proofs  are  no 
longer  mingled  with  them.  ...  It  is  to  this  point,"  adds 
Re*gis,  "  that  the  University  of  Paris  [the  Sorbonne]  has 


208  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

reduced  the  chief  part  of  its  Theology.  It  is  only  to  be 
desired  that  it  may  keep  on  as  it  has  begun ;  for  which 
there  is  reason  to  hope."  l 

Without  dwelling  upon  the  astonishing  fact  of  an  opinion 
which  sees  disorder,  lawless  use,  and  a  lack  of  dignity  in  that 
Theology  of  past  ages  which  gave  us  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas, 
the  Angel  of  the  School  and  the  prince  of  Catholic  theolo- 
gians, let  us  confine  ourselves  to  showing  that  the  Cartesian 
philosophy  did  on  its  side  what  the  Sor bonne  did  on  its  own. 
There  was  an  effort  to  divide,  more  than  had  been  done  in 
the  past,  the  two  orders  of  reason  and  faith,  which,  each 
in  its  sphere,  have  in  themselves  their  proper  authority. 
Philosophers  and  theologians  agreed  to  free  themselves  mu- 
tually, —  to  maintain  apart  the  two  authorities  and  their 
proper  consistency :  well  knowing  that  the  maintenance  of 
either  of  the  two  was  enough  to  save  the  whole.  Both, 
besides,  were  equally  anxious  for  the  triumph  of  theology 
and  of  philosophy :  the  Sorbonrie  was  as  jealous  of  the 
triumph  of  reason  as  Descartes,  in  his  substantial  piety,  was 
jealous  of  the  triumph  of  faith.  But  men  were  very  glad 
to  oppose  unaided  reason  to  the  mystic  evil  scepticism  of 
Jansenism  and  Protestantism ;  and  to  the  free  thinking  of 
paltry  rationalists,  faith  alone  with  its  divine  authority. 

And  yet,  what  has  happened  ?  These  tactics,  which  were 
well  meant,  but  which,  as  Kegis  aptly  remarks,  were  novel, 
—  being  neither  those  of  the  Fathers  rior  of  the  Middle 
Age,  —  produced  very  different  results  from  what  were  ex- 
pected. Bossuet  foresaw  the  mischief  when  he  wrote  to  a 
disciple  of  Descartes  and  Malebranche :  "  I  see  a  great 
contest  making  ready  against  the  Church,  under  the  name  of 
Cartesian  philosophy.  I  see  more  than  one  heresy  springing 
from  its  bosom  and  its  principles,  which  are,  in  my  opinion, 
misunderstood."  More  yet,  Bossuet  points  out  the  mischief 

1  Regis,  Concordance  of  Faith  and  Reason,  book  iii.  ch.  xxviii.  p.  370. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    209 

as  already  accomplished :  "  From  those  same  principles,  mis- 
understood as  they  are,  another  formidable  evil  is  visibly 
gaining  ground ;  for  on  the  pretext  that  we  should  only 
accept  what  we  understand  clearly,  —  which,  reduced  to  cer- 
tain bounds,  is  very  true,  —  every  man  takes  the  liberty  to 
say,  I  understand  this,  and  I  do  not  understand  that ;  and 
upon  this  basis  alone,  he  approves  or  rejects  whatever  he 
pleases,  —  without  thinking  that  besides  our  clear  and  dis- 
tinct ideas,  there  are  others,  confused  and  general,  which  nev- 
ertheless contain  truths  so  essential  that  by  denying  them 
we  overthrow  everything.  Upon  this  pretext  a  freedom  of 
opinion  is  introduced  which  leads  men  to  advance  boldly 
anything  that  they  may  think,  without  regard  to  tradition." l 

Thus,  upon  the  plea  of  Cartesianism,  those  who  pique 
themselves  on  their  philosophy  ensconce  themselves  in  their 
reason  and  their  clear  ideas,  and  from  that  shelter  judge  of 
everything,  —  authority,  tradition,  and  faith. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  theologians  forsaking  proofs 
and  philosophical  reasons,  and  "seizing  the  highest  thing," 
as  Kegis  says,  theology  became  more  and  more  obscure,  par- 
ticularly in  the  eyes  of  those  who  wished  nothing  but  light. 
Saint  Augustine  said,  "  I  exhort  your  faith  to  the  love  of  in- 
telligence." The  Middle  Age  took  for  its  motto,  "Faith 
seeking  intelligence."  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  said,  "  The- 
ology may  receive  from  philosophy  a  grander  manifestation 
of  her  dogmas."  A  means  of  manifestation  was  therefore 
lost,  —  that  is  to  say,  a  means  of  introducing  into  the  mind 
of  men  the  revealed  divine  light. 

So  that  these  tactics  produced  but  one  result.  They  had, 
in  a  certain  sense,  divided  one  from  the  other,  faith  and 
reason,  and  had  permitted  the  enemy  to  cut  off  the  right  and 
left  wings  of  truth,  as  has  ingeniously  been  said.2  The 

1  To  a  Disciple  of  Malebranche.     Letter  to  Father  Lami. 

2  Father  Lacordaire. 

14 


210  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

army  of  truth,  thus  reduced,  must  lose  a  battle.  The 
consequences  have  been  before  us  for  a  century.  The  eigh- 
teenth century,  seeing  faith  and  reason  march  separately, 
flung  itself  between  them,  isolated  them,  and  ruined  faith  in 
the  name  of  reason.  This  done,  the  enemy  turned  against 
reason  itself;  and,  as  we  know,  philosophy  was  at  once 
ruined  by  the  rebound,  —  since  it  is  plain  that  what  is  called 
the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  merely  the  ab- 
sence and  ignorance  of  all  philosophy.  And  what  shall  we 
say  of  the  final  consequences  of  this  great  rout ;  namely,  the 
formal  and  radical  negation  of  reason  in  all  its  postulates, 
the  premeditated  and  avowed  destruction  of  logic  in  its  ne- 
cessary laws,  —  a  mystery  of  intellectual  death  and  decomposi- 
tion which  has  been  preparing  for  fifty  years,  and  which  now 
bursts  upon  us !  For,  as  we  see,  reason  is  attacked  in  all  its 
laws,  as  well  as  in  all  its  postulates,  as  directly  and  as  radi- 
cally as  faith  was  attacked  ;  the  very  foundations  of  logic 
are  denied,  and  the  leader  of  this  vast  sophistic  movement 
exclaims :  "  The  time  has  come  to  transform  logic ;  "  and  it  is 
indeed  transformed,  by  destroying  the  antagonism  of  affirma- 
tion and  negation,  whose  identity  is  proclaimed,  —  which 
destroys  logic  itself,  with  every  trace  of  theoretic  and  prac- 
tical reason. 

May  this  history  be  a  lesson  to  our  age !  Let  us  return  to 
the  tactics  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Middle  Age  ;  or  rather,  let 
us  have  no  tactics.  Let  us  confine  ourselves  to  not  parting 
that  which  God  hath  joined  together.  Certainly  human 
light,  reason,  is  as  different  from  divine  light,  faith,  as  man  is 
inferior  to  God,  the  creature  lower  than  the  Creator.  •  The 
advance  of  philosophy  and  theology  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  the  decisions  of  the  Church,  have  made  a  greater 
distinction  than  ever  between  the  two  orders  of  the  natural 
and  supernatural ;  and  nothing  is  more  necessary,  and  at  the 
same  time  more  fruitful,  than  an  exact  and  precise  knowl- 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    211 

edge  of  this  radical  distinction :  but  this  is  precisely  where 
all  Christianity  rests  upon  the  mystery  of  the  two  natures  of 
Christ,  infinitely  distinct,  but  closely  united  in  the  unity  of 
his  person.  So,  too,  as  has  been  said,  the  true  knowledge 
of  Christians  should  rest  upon  the  union  and  mutual  com- 
munication of  the  two  lights,  otherwise  radically  distinct. 
This  union  constitutes  the  great  knowledge,  "  at  once  human 
and  divine,"  which  all  the  Fathers  and  all  the  great  theolo- 
gians seek ;  which  Saint  Gregory  Nazianzen  calls  the  highest 
philosophy;  and  without  which,  says  Origen  in  regard  to 
Saint  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  who  approves  of  it,  true 
piety  can  never  possess  all  its  power. 

PASCAL. 
I. 

In  this  admirable  concert  of  illustrious  voices  which 
teach  us  to  seek  God  through  reason,  Pascal  develops  and 
sustains  an  idea  which  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  most 
essential  to  the  truth  of  the  whole.  Not  that  by  his  melan- 
choly and  his  moans  he  does  not  sometimes  make  a  discord 
with  the  others,  but  it  is  an  indispensable  discord,  which 
must  be  understood  and  brought  into  the  general  harmony. 

Pascal  insists  upon  the  practical  side  of  the  rational  search 
for  God ;  he  shows  us  particularly  its  real  condition,  which, 
if  it  be  fulfilled,  suffices ;  which,  if  it  be  wanting,  renders 
the  rest  impossible,  and  actually  arrests  all  passage  of  the 
mind  towards  God. 

Pascal  knows  that  the  reasoning  which  rises  to  God  re- 
quires, as  its  motive-spring,  a  moral  condition,  and  that  the 
point  of  support  of  the  proof  is  not  only  the  experimental 
knowledge  of  our  existence,  but  also  that  of  our  imperfec- 
tion. He  knows  that  the  knowledge  of  our  imperfection  im- 
plies some  sense  of  perfection,  and  that  this  divine  sense  of 


212  GUIDE  TO  TEE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

the  perfect  and  the  infinite  is  developed  by  moral  rectitude, 
and  obliterated  by  depravity  of  will,  as  is  proved  by  these 
words  of  Scripture :  "  The  fool  saith  in  his  heart,  There  is  no 
God."  The  fool,  that  is,  the  man  deprived  of  the  divine 
sense  by  his  folly,  lacks  any  real  starting-point  for  the  proof 
of  God.  He  cannot  understand  that  proof  if  it  be  offered  to 
him ;  his  mind  neither  receives  it  nor  produces  it.  The  side 
of  his  reason  which  is  capable  of  attaining  the  actual  infi- 
nite, does  not  work,  for  lack  of  a  motive-spring ;  the  other 
side  is  active  and  entire,  but  the  former  is  paralyzed  by  an 
obstacle,  —  that  obstacle  which  Aristotle  saw  in  the  sensu- 
ality, intoxication,  and  blind  torpor  in  which  we  live. 

We  see  how  important  it  was  to  develop  vigorously  this 
part  of  the  truth,  amid  those  great  minds  who  raised  the 
glory  of  human  reason  to  such  a  height,  by  their  doctrine 
and  their  works. 

Pascal,  moreover,  seems  to  counterbalance  Descartes,  who 
devoted  himself  wholly  to  natural  philosophy,  and  not  to 
Theology ;  who  sets  faith  apart,  and  makes  so  strong  a  dis- 
tinction between  "  the  two  orders  of  divine  intelligibility  "  as 
to  isolate  them.  Pascal  incessantly  urges  the  mind  towards 
the  higher  of  the  two  orders,  scorning  the  lesser.  He  rushes 
with  all  his  might  towards  the  term  of  the  process,  as  Plato 
would  say,  and  forgets  the  intermediaries.  He  knows  that 
the  last  step  of  reason  is  a  surrender  to  faith,  and  he  hastens 
thither.  He  goes  at  once  to  the  last  depths,  to  the  centre  of 
the  soul,  which  he  calls  the  heart,  then  directly  from  the 
heart  to  God,  —  to  the  God  of  Christians,  to  the  supernatural 
knowledge  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ. 

Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  we  have  the  moral  condition  indis- 
pensable to  the  flight  of  the  mind  towards  God  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  necessity  for  attaining  the  supernatural  goal ;  the 
vanity  of  purely  natural  knowledge  of  God:  such  are  the 
points  to  which  the  energetic  eloquence  of  Pascal  is  devoted. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    213 


II. 

Pascal's  scepticism,  in  reality  and  in  its  intention,  is  not 
genuine  scepticism :  it  is  scarcely  more  than  the  sentiment 
expressed  by  Bossuet :  "  111  befall  the  barren  knowledge  which 
does  not  turn  to  loving  and  betray  itself ! "  it  is  scarcely 
more  than  the  development  of  Bacon's  words :  "  Human  in- 
telligence is  not  a  dry  light  (Intellectus  humanus  luminis  sicci 
non  est)"  For  if  that  light  be  dried  up,  by  isolating  it  from 
the  heart,  from  feeling,  from  the  divine  sense,  Pascal  fails  to 
understand  how  it  can  reach  to  the  knowledge  of  God.  "  The 
heart,"  he  says,  "  the  heart  has  its  reasons,  which  reason  does 
not  know." 1  Now,  in  his  eyes,  "  it  is  the  heart  that  feels 
God,  not  the  reason.  This  is  faith :  God  perceptible  to  the 
heart,  not  to  the  reason."  2  Moreover,  Pascal  sees  an  element 
of  freedom  in  the  use  of  this  heart-sense,  the  beginning  of 
the  knowledge  of  God.  "I  say  that  the  heart  loves  the  uni- 
versal Being  naturally  and  itself  naturally,  according  as  it 
applies  itself  thereto ;  and  it  hardens  itself  against  one  or  the 
other  at  its  own  choice.  You  reject  one  and  retain  the  other : 
is  it  reason  that  leads  you  to  love  ? " 3  This  is  indeed  the 
core  of  the  question :  the  heart's  free  choice  in  regard  to  God's 
natural  attraction  in  the  soul  decides  everything,  and  guides 
our  mind  towards  God  or  turns  it  from  him. 

But  what  does  Pascal  understand  by  the  heart  ? 

We  must  know  the  original  but  deep  significance  which 
he  gives  to  the  word.  To  him  the  heart  is  the  chief  of  the 
soul's  faculties,  implicating  the  roots  of  intelligence  and  will, 
-  that  which,  in  the  soul,  adheres  directly  to  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  the  desirable  and  the  intelligible,  that  is,  the  heart. 
On  the  other  hand,  to  Pascal,  most  frequently  at  least,  reason 
means  ratiocination,  and  ratiocination  means  syllogism. 
Hence  we  can  understand  what  follows:  — 

i  Edit.  Faug&re,  ii.  172.  2  Ibid.  8  Ibid. 


214  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

"We  know  the  truth,  not  only  through  the  reason,  but  also 
through  the  heart :  it  is  the  first  principles  of  this  latter  sort  that 
we  know,  and  it  is  in  vain  that  ratiocination,  which  has  no  share 
therein,  strives  to  combat  them.  .  .  .  The  knowledge  of  the  first 
principles  is  as  steadfast  as  any  of  those  which  our  ratiocinations 
give.  And  it  is  upon  such  knowledge  of  the  heart  and  instinct 
that  reason  should  rest  and  should  base  all  its  discourse.  Princi- 
ples are  felt,  propositions  are  inferred ;  and  all  this  with  equal  cer- 
titude, though  by  different  ways.  And  it  is  as  absurd  for  reason 
to  require  of  the  heart  proof  of  its  first  principles  as  a  requisite 
for  consenting  to  them,  as  it  would  be  absurd  for  the  heart  to  de- 
mand of  reason  a  feeling  for  all  the  propositions  that  it  proves, 
before  it  will  receive  them.771 

We  see  that  Pascal  here  describes  inner  facts  which  all 
philosophers  have  seen,  only  he  calls  "heart  and  instinct" 
what  some  call  "  direct  perception  of  evidence ; "  others, 
" spontaneous  knowledge;"  others,  "natural  faith;"  others, 
"the  sense  of  the  desirable  and  the  intelligible;"  and  we 
understand  how  and  in  what  sense  he  criticises  reason :  he 
wishes,  like  all  sceptics  of  a  dogmatic  bent,  to  humiliate,  not 
intrinsic  reason,  but  reason  isolated,  mutilated,  separated 
from  its  source  in  the  soul  and  from  its  source  in  God. 

Besides,  Pascal  does  not  deny  that  there  is  a  natural  and 
rational  knowledge  of  God,  independently  of  Christian  faith ; 
but  he  says  that  this  knowledge  is  barren,  barren  of  salvation. 
"All  those,"  he  says,  "who  seek  God  without  Jesus  Christ, 
can  never  find  such  light  as  will  afford  them  true  satisfaction 
or  genuine  fruit.  For  either  they  do  not  advance  so  far  as 
to  know  that  there  is  a  God,  or  if  they  do.  it  is  in  vain."  2  He 
therefore  confesses  that  we  can  reach  this  natural  knowledge ; 
he  points  out  three  modes  of  knowing  God,  —  as  a  heathen, 
as  a  Jew,  and  as  a  Christian.  "  The  divinity  of  Christians 
does  not  consist  of  a  God  who  is  merely  the  author  of  geo- 
metric truths  and  the  order  of  the  elements ;  that  is  the  lot 

1  Edit.  Faugfcre,  ii.  108.  2  Complete  Works,  ii.  307  (Lattaye). 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    215 

of  the  heathen.  It  does  not  consist  merely  of  a  God  who 
exercises  his  providence  over  the  life  and  welfare  of  men,  to 
give  a  happy  length  of  years  to  those  who  adore  him ;  that 
is  the  share  of  the  Jews.  But  the  God  of  Abraham  and 
Jacob,  the  God  of  Christians,  is  a  God  of  love  and  consola- 
tion: he  is  a  God  who  fills  the  soul  and  heart  which  he 
possesses."  l 

Pascal,  therefore,  clearly  distinguishes  between  natural  and 
supernatural  knowledge  of  God.  But  he  points  out  the  dry- 
ness  and  sterility  of  the  natural  knowledge.  "  If  a  man,"  he 
says,  "  should  be  persuaded  that  the  proportions  of  numbers 
are  immaterial  and  eternal  truths  dependent  on  a  first  truth  in 
which  they  subsist,  and  which  is  called  God,  I  should  not  con- 
sider that  man  had  made  great  progress  towards  salvation."  2 

Pascal  does  not  deny  the  legitimacy  of  the  metaphysical 
proofs  of  God  ;  he  only  remarks,  with  the  world  in  general, 
upon  their  extreme  difficulty,  and  their  almost  absolute  in- 
utility  in  practice,  —  at  least,  when  they  are  given  under 
certain  forms.  Who  does  not  see  the  perfect  justice  of  the 
following  observation  ?  "  The  metaphysical  proofs  of  God 
are  so  remote  from  human  reasoning,  and  so  complicated, 
that  they  strike  us  but  little ;  and  if  they  should  serve  some 
persons,  it  could  only  be  during  the  moment  that  they  see 
that  demonstration ;  but  an  hour  later,  they  fear  lest  they 
were  deceived.  Besides,  this  sort  of  proofs  can  only  guide 
us  to  a  speculative  knowledge  of  God."  3 

It  is  plain  enough  that  Pascal  refers  here  to  certain  proofs 
which  he  calls  metaphysical,  which  are  so  remote  from 
human  reasoning,  and  so  complicated,  which  only  guide  us 
to  a  speculative  knowledge,  which  have  nothing  common, 
popular,  experimental,  about  them,  —  nothing  which  rests 
upon  the  divine  sense  and  the  moral  side  of  the  soul; 

1  Complete  Works,  ii.  306.  8  ibid.,  p.  305. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  202. 


216  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

hence,  what  can  be  truer  than  this  criticism  ?  Let  us  recall 
Aristotle's  proofs,  as  stated  by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas. 

Pascal  wishes  the  knowledge  of  God  always  to  rest  both 
upon  the  mind  and  upon  the  entire  soul ;  if  it  rests  on  the 
mind  alone,  in  his  opinion  it  is  only  an  idol.  "  Men  make 
an  idol  of  truth  itself ;  for  truth  without  charity  is  not 
God,  it  is  his  image,  and  an  idol  which  should  neither  be 
loved  nor  worshipped,"  —  words  of  wonderful  depth. 

Lastly,  it  seems  to  me  impossible  to  regard  Pascal  as  a 
genuine  sceptic,  if  we  weigh  the  following  passages :  "  We 
must  learn  to  doubt  where  it  is  requisite,  to  assume  where 
it  is  requisite,  to  submit  where  it  is  requisite.  He  who  fails 
to  do  this  does  not  understand  the  power  of  reason.1  .  .  . 
There  are  two  excesses,  —  to  exclude  reason,  and  to  admit 
nothing  but  reason.2  ...  It  is  your  assent  to  yourself,  and 
the  firm  voice  of  your  own  reason,  not  that  of  others,  which 
should  lead  you  to  believe."3 

III. 

From  what  precedes,  it  follows  that  in  reality  Pascal's 
doctrine  concerning  the  knowledge  of  God  is  this :  — 

God  is  perceptible  to  the  heart  naturally,  but  the  soul 
destroys  or  increases  this  divine  feeling,  "according  as  it 
applies  itself,  and  of  its  own  volition."  When  deprived  of 
this  feeling,  the  soul  has  no  power  to  rise  to  the  idea  of 
God ;  and  the  arguments  which  it  then  accumulates  afford  it 
no  useful  light  or  assurance.  On  the  contrary,  with  this 
feeling,  which  is  developed  in  the  soul  in  proportion  as  it 
becomes  more  familiar  with  its  selfishness  and  poverty,  the 
least  argument  at  once  raises  the  mind  to  God.  In  this 
case,  "  all  our  reasoning  is  reduced  to  yielding  to  emotion." 
In  the  former  case,  "  reason  acts  slowly,  and  with  so  many 

1  Edit.  Faugere,  ii.  347.  2  Ibid.,  p.  348.  8  Ibid.,  p.  351. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    217 

different  views  and  principles  which  it  must  always  consider, 
that  it  continually  grows  drowsy,  or  goes  astray  for  want  of 
seeing  them  all  at  once.  It  is  not  so  with  feeling  ;  it  acts 
in  an  instant,  and  yet  is  always  ready  to  act."  1  Plainly, 
Pascal  has  here  in  view  the  two  processes  of  reason  ;  and  he 
shows  the  clumsiness,  slowness,  and  complications  of  the 
syllogistic  process,  when  used  to  reproduce  what  the  dia- 
lectic process,  although  perfectly  exact,  seizes  by  a  rapid, 
almost  simple  impulse,  comparable  to  a  prayer  or  an 
emotion. 

Then,  beyond  all  this,  Pascal  feels  keenly  that  there  is 
another  degree  of  the  divine  intelligibility,  and  that  in 
practice  the  true  knowledge  of  God,  serving  for  the  salvation 
of  the  world  and  of  every  soul,  is  that  which  faith  in  Christ 
Jesus  develops  in  us. 

Such,  I  believe,  is  the  solid  basis  of  Pascal's  philosophy. 
But  it  must  be  confessed  that  it  is  not  easy  to  grasp  a  sys- 
tem among  the  scattered  fragments  which  we  know  as  his 
works,  since  we  find  manifest  contradictions  in  that  maze, 
where  doubts  and  opinions,  questions  and  assertions,  ob- 
jections and  replies,  are  blended. 

We  see  clearly  that  Pascal  undertook  to  correct  that 
purely  syllogistic  semi-reason,  paralyzed  in  its  best  part,  set 
apart  from  life,  emotion,  the  heart,  and  all  faith,  whether 
natural  or  supernatural,  indifferent  to  all  guidance,  destitute 
of  rule  or  principles,  limping,  and  blind  to  the  infinite,  even 
in  geometry,  as  it  asserts.  When,  therefore,  this  puny 
reason  becomes  arrogant,  he  humbles  it,  he  overthrows  it; 
and  that  is  only  just. 

But  it  is  quite  as  plain  that  Pascal,  being  a  Jansenist,  was 
liable  to  mistake,  and  was  mistaken  in  regard  to  the  rela- 
tions between  faith  and  reason.  In  the  first  place,  he  allows 
natural  reason  but  too  little  light,  and  the  will  but  too  little 

1  Complete  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  362. 


218  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

liberty.  He  knows  no  healthy  and  upright  reason  but  that 
which  rests  on  emotion  and  affection  ;  and  at  the  same  time 
he  admits  of  no  other  love  of  God  but  that  supernatural 
love,  the  gift  of  grace,  which  is  charity.  Moreover,  he  not 
only  says  that  the  supernatural  light  of  faith  is  a  gift  of 
God,  snperadded  to  reason,  —  he  believes  that  this  gift  is 
arbitrary  on  God's  part;  that  nothing  can  prepare  us  for  it ; 
that  no  effort  can  avail,  even  indirectly,  to  make  us  less 
incapable  of  it,  and  that  God  refuses  it  to  souls  which  labor 
with  all  their  might,  by  reason  and  by  freedom,  to  remove 
the  obstacle  !  "  We  utterly  fail  to  understand  the  works  of 
God,"  he  says,  "  unless  we  accept  it  as  a  principle  that  God 
blinds  some,  and  enlightens  others.1  No  man  ever  believes 
with  a  true  and  saving  faith,  unless  God  inclines  his  heart ; 
and  no  man,  when  God  inclines  his  heart,  can  refrain  from 
thus  believing.1"  2  He  also  allows  himself  elsewhere  to  be  so 
far  carried  away  that  he  writes  these  almost  blasphemous 
words:  "Neither  discourses  nor  books,  neither  our  sacred 
Scriptures  nor  our  Gospel,  neither  our  most  holy  mysteries, 
nor  alms,  nor  fasts,  nor  mortifications  of  the  flesh,  nor  mira- 
cles, nor  the  use  of  sacraments,  nor  the  sacrifice  of  our  body, 
nor  all  my  efforts,  nor  those  of  the  whole  world  combined, 
can  do  anything  at  all  to  begin  my  conversion,  if  thou  dost 
not  add  to  all  these  things  the  most  extraordinary  aid  of  thy 
grace."  3  So  that  between  the  two  worlds,  between  the  two 
degrees  of  the  divine  intelligibility,  one  of  which,  however, 
supposes  the  other,  according  to  Plato  and  Saint  Thomas  Aqui- 
nas, there  is  no  possible  intermediary  but  an  arbitrary  decree 
of  God  and  a  most  extraordinary  effort  of  his  grace ;  and 
neither  the  proper  use  of  reason  and  liberty,  nor  recourse  to 
the  sacraments,  nor  reading  of  the  gospel,  nor  all  our  efforts, 
be  they  what  they  may,  aided  and  preceded  by  that  universal 

1  Thoughts  (Paris,  1714),  p.  47.  8  Ibid.,  p.  303. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  177. 


THEODICY   OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    219 

grace  which  God  sheds  like  his  sun  upon  all  men, —  absolutely 
nothing  can  avail  to  begin  the  soul's  return  to  eternal  life. 
And  in  speaking  thus,  Pascal  imagines  that  he  is  following 
Saint  Augustine,  while  Saint  Augustine  teaches  this :  "  Do 
you  think  that  man  can  believe  if  he  desire  it  not,  or  that  he 
can  abstain  from  believing  if  he  desire  to  believe  ?  That  would 
be  absurd.  Therefore  faith  is  in  our  power.  .  .  .  But,  as  the 
Apostle  says,  all  power  comes  from  God.  .  .  .  God  gives  us 
the  power  to  believe,  without  imposing  upon  us  the  necessity. 
.  .  .  Faith,  therefore,  is  in  our  power,  since  we  believe  if  we 
choose,  and  if  we  believe,  it  is  because  we  choose."  l 

Such  is  sectarian  blindness.  A  man  may  rely  upon 
Saint  Augustine  while  he  teaches  the  exact  opposite  of  his 
doctrines.  In  this  respect,  in  what  concerned  sects  and 
their  quarrels,  no  one  was  more  sincerely  blind  and  hasty 
than  Pascal.  It  was  a  matter  of  temperament  and  character 
as  much  as  of  zeal  and  conviction. 

Look  at  Pascal's  portrait,  sketched  by  Domat,  in  his 
Corpus  Juris,  with  such  striking  truth.  Never  did  face 
better  express  a  whole  history.  At  a  single  glance  you 
read  in  those  features  the  courage,  tenderness,  terrors,  and 
tears  of  that  generous  heart ;  the  vigor  and  sombre  enthusi- 
asm of  that  splendid  genius,  as  well  as  the  strange  error 
which  showed  him  an  abyss  ever  yawning  at  his  feet ;  and 
this  other  error,  far  worthier  of  pity,  in  which,  without  being 
responsible  for  it,  I  hope,  he  slandered  the  purest  of  men. 

MALEBRANCHE. 
I. 

"France  is  not  sufficiently  proud  of  her  Malebranche," 
said  De  Maistre.  Others  have  called  Malebranche  the  Chris- 
tian Plato.  And,  indeed,  if  Plato  brought  all  philosophy  to 

1  De  Spirit,  et  Litter.,  pp.  54,  55. 


220  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

the  search  and  the  vision  of  eternal  ideas,  which  are  God, 
to  what  did  Malebranche  bring  all  philosophy,  if  not  to  see 
everything  in  God? 

What  the  Gospel  says,  "  The  Word  is  the  light  of  men ; " 
what  Saint  Augustine  adds  in  his  commentary  on  this  pass- 
age, "  This  light  of  men  is  reason ; "  all  Descartes'  efforts 
to  show  that  the  idea  of  God  proceeds  from  God,  is  God  con- 
ceived, and  even  that  every  idea,  every  opinion,  every  act  of 
the  understanding,  is,  or  supposes,  a  certain  perception  of 
the  light  which  is  God,  —  is  eagerly  grasped  by  Malebranche, 
developed  with  matchless  fulness  and  untiring  zeal,  main- 
tained with  contagious  conviction,  penetrative  lucidity  of 
reasoning  and  style.  No  man,  so  much  as  he,  has  shown 
the  presence  of  God  in  reason. 

All  the  resources  of  his  style,  undulating  with  light,  all 
the  power  of  the  lofty  poetry  at  his  command,  although  a 
systematic  foe  to  imagination,  all  the  rigor  of  his  geometry, 
all  the  perfection  and  the  impetus  of  the  most  ardent  faith, 
and  all  the  genuine  warmth  of  a  soul  as  loving  as  it  was 
clear-sighted,  —  all  these  resources  are  used,  not  in  abstract 
demonstration  of  the  existence  of  God,  but  in  manifestation 
of  God  as  the  Word  present  in  the  soul.  And  this  Word 
Malebranche  calls  sometimes  "  Eeason,"  and  sometimes 
"Jesus  Christ." 

Let  us  hear  what  he  says.  He  begins  his  Christian 
Meditations  with  this  prayer:  — 

"  0  Eternal  Wisdom  !  I  am  not  my  light  to  myself,  and  the 
bodies  which  surround  me  cannot  enlighten  me ;  intelligences 
themselves,  not  containing  in  their  being  the  reason  which  ren- 
ders them  wise,  cannot  communicate  that  reason  to  my  mind. 
Thou  art  alone  the  light  of  angels  and  of  men;  thou  art  alone 
the  universal  light  of  minds,  —  wisdom,  eternal,  immutable,  ne- 
cessary. Oh,  my  true  and  sole  Master  \  show  thyself  to  me ; 
make  me  see  light  in  thy  light.  I  address  myself  to  none  save 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    221 

thee  ;  I  would  consult  only  thee.  Speak,  Eternal  Word,  word  of 
the  Father,  word  which  has  always  been  spoken,  which  is  spoken 
now,  and  which  will  be  spoken  forever.  Speak,  and  speak  loudly 
enough  to  make  thyself  heard,  despite  the  noisy  confusion  which 
my  senses  and  my  passions  make  in  my  mind. 

"  But,  0  Jesus  !  I  pray  thee  to  speak  in  me  only  for  thy 
glory,  and  to  make  me  know  only  thy  greatness.  .  .  .  Make  me 
know,  0  Jesus  !  that  which  thou  art,  and  how  all  things  subsist 
in  thee.  Pervade  my  mind  with  the  splendor  of  thy  light,  con- 
sume my  heart  with  the  ardor  of  thy  love,  and  grant  me  in  the 
course  of  this  work,  which  I  write  solely  for  thy  glory,  expressions 
clear  and  true,  vivid  and  breathing,  worthy  of  thee,  and  such  that 
they  may  increase  in  me  and  in  those  who  deign  to  meditate 
with  me  the  knowledge  of  thy  greatness  and  the  sense  of  thy 
benefits ! " 

II. 

Let  us  try,  then,  to  meditate  a  little  while  with  Male- 
branche.  He  listens,  he  questions,  and  the  inward  master 
answers  him. 

Master.  "  Dost  thou  not  feel  that  the  light  of  reason  is  ever 
present  to  thee,  that  it  dwells  within  thee,  and  that  when  thou 
retirest  within  thyself  thou  dost  become  completely  illumined 
therewith  1  Dost  thou  not  hear  that  it  answers  thee  when  thou 
dost  question  it,  when  thou  canst  question  it  by  a  serious  atten- 
tion, when  thy  passions  and  senses  are  reverent  and  silent? 

"  Retire  into  thyself,  and  hear  me.  .  .  .  Thus  doth  truth  speak 
to  all  those  who  love  her  and  who  with  ardent  desire  implore  her 
to  feed  them  with  her  substance  :  — 

"I  feed  minds  with  my  own  self;  ...  I  give  myself  wholly 
to  all  and  wholly  to  each.  I  have  created  them  to  make  them 
like  unto  myself,  and  to  feed  them  with  my  substance ;  and  they 
are  the  more  rational  the  more  perfectly  they  possess  me."  l 

Soul.  "  What,  my  Jesus,  is  it  thyself  who  dost  speak  to  me  in 
my  most  secret  reason1?  It  is  then  thy  voice  I  hear.  Thou 
comest  to  shed  light  in  an  instant  through  my  soul  !  What ! 

1  Meditation  II.,  Nos.  11,  12,  13. 


222  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

It  is  thou  alone  that  enlightenest  all  men  !  Alas,  how  dull  was  I 
when  I  believed  that  thy  creatures  spoke  to  me,  when  thou  didst 
reply  !  How  vainglorious  was  I  when  I  fancied  that  I  was  a  light 
unto  myself,  when  thou  didst  enlighten  me !  .  .  .  Oh,  my  only 
master,  may  men  know  that  thou  dost  penetrate  them  in  such 
manner  that  when  they  believe  they  answer  themselves  and  con- 
verse with  themselves,  it  is  thou  who  dost  speak  with  them  and 
hold  converse  with  them !  Yes,  light  of  the  world,  I  understand 
it  now  :  it  is  thou  who  dost  enlighten  us,  when  we  discover  any 
truth  whatsoever ;  it  is  thou  who  dost  exhort  us,  when  we  see  the 
beauty  of  order ;  it  is  thou  who  dost  correct  us,  when  we  hear  the 
secret  reproaches  of  reason ;  it  is  thou  who  dost  punish  us  or  con- 
sole us  when  we  feel  that  deep  remorse  which  rends  our  interiors, 
or  those  words  of  peace  which  fill  us  with  joy.1 

"  May  those  who  know  thee  as  a  God  ever  attent  upon  them, 
acting  in  them,  enlightening  them,  entreating  them,  correcting 
them,  consoling  them,  render  perpetual  thanks  to  thee  for  the 
benefits  they  receive  at  thy  hands,  so  that  they  may  deserve  fresh 
favors,  and  that  thou  mayst  at  last  make  them  worthy  to  possess 
thee  forever.  May  those  who,  unconscious  of  the  secret  opera- 
tions by  which  thou  actest  in  us,  do  not  know  the  author  of  their 
being,  nor  him  who  gives  them  every  moment  fresh  motion  and 
life,  seek  their  benefactor  with  all  their  strength,  with  love,  eager- 
ness, and  persistence,  and  may  they  tend  an  altar  to  the  unknoivn 
God,  until  thou  dost  reveal  thyself, to  them.2 

"  As  for  me,  Lord,  I  implore  thee  to  teach  me  that  mode  of 
consulting  thee  which  is  ever  rewarded  by  a  clear  and  evident 
knowledge  of  the  truth." 

Master.  "  Thou  already  knowest  in  part  that  which  thou  dost 
ask.  I  have  already  told  thee,  but  thou  dost  not  reflect  thereon. 
Dost  thou  not  remember  that  I  have  often  answered  thee  as  soon 
as  thou  hast  desired  it?  Thy  wishes,  therefore,  suffice  to  force 
me  to  answer  thee.  True,  I  desire  to  be  entreated.  But  thy 
desire  is  a  natural  prayer  which  my  mind  frames  in  thee.  It  is 
the  actual  love  of  truth  that  prays,  and  that  obtains  the  sight 
of  truth." 8 


1  Meditation  II.,  No.  15.  8  Meditation  III,  Nos.  9  and  10. 

2  Ibid.,  No.  19. 


THEODICY   OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    223 

This  is  the  beginning  of  these  wonderful  Meditations. 
What  follows,  although  placed  in  the  middle  of  the  work, 
may  be  regarded  as  their  conclusion. 

"  I  confess  it,  my  only  Master,  and  I  wish  to  consult  thee 
solely  concerning  the  truths  which  are  necessary  to  me  to  lead 
me  to  the  possession  of  true  good.  The  time  is  short,  death 
draws  near,  and  I  must  enter  such  an  eternity  as  I  shall  have 
deserved.  The  thought  of  death  changes  all  my  views  and  in- 
terrupts all  my  plans.  Everything  vanishes  or  changes  its  as- 
pect when  I  think  of  eternity.  Abstract  knowledge,  brilliant 
and  sublime  as  you  may  be,  you  are  but  vanity,  and  I  forsake 
you.  I  will  study  religion  and  morals ;  I  will  work  to  become 
perfect  and  happy,  and  quit  the  weary  task  which  God  has  given 
to  the  children  of  men,  all  that  empty  knowledge  of  which  it  is 
written,  that  those  who  acquire  it,  instead  of  becoming  wise  and 
content,  but  add  to  their  labors  and  their  cares." T 

We  feel  it  to  be  our  duty  to  give  this  quotation  to  show 
the  genius  of  Malebranche  and  the  practical  result  which  he 
attained.  In  fact,  Malebranche  believed  thoroughly  in  the 
inward  converse  of  the  soul  with  the  universal  Word.  He 
did  not  merely  state  these  things  as  speculative  rules,  he 
practised  them  habitually. 

He  took  literally  and  accepted,  as  a  philosopher,  Christ's 
words  in  answer  to  those  who  asked  him,  "  Who  art  thou  ? " 
"I  am  the  beginning  of  all  things,  I  who  speak  with  you." 
Malebranche  considered  that  these  words  contained  the  very 
principle  of  philosophy.  The  universal  Word  naturally  speaks 
always  to  all  men.  This  inner  appeal  of  God,  and  our 
natural  capacity  for  understanding  its  meaning,  is  reason. 
According  to  Malebranche,  he  who  does  not  know  this,  knows 
nothing  of  philosophy.  From  this  point  of  view  any  other 
knowledge  than  that  of  the  Word  itself  seemed  to  him  fruit- 
less. We  see  that,  like  Plato,  he  regarded  the  abstract  sci- 

1  End  of  Meditation  IX. 


224  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

ences,  brilliant  and  sublime  as  they  might  be,  as  merely  the 
shadows  of  that  which  is,  and  as  divine  phantasms.  He 
wishes  to  pass  from  the  shadow  to  the  reality,  which  gives 
us  the  profoundly  philosophic  meaning  of  the  beautiful  and 
devout  words  just  quoted. 


III. 

As  for  the  proof  itself  of  the  existence  of  God,  as  Male- 
branche  understands  it,  we  find  germs  of  it  in  the  preceding 
passages.  But  here  it  is  in  plain  terms,  — 

"God1  is  He  Who  is;  that  is  to  say,  the  Being  which  contains 
in  its  esssence  all  the  reality  and  perfection  to  be  found  in  all 
beings ;  the  Being  infinite  in  every  sense,  —  in  a  word,  Being. 

"  Our  God  is  Being,  without  any  restriction  or  limitation.  He 
includes  in  himself,  in  a  manner  incomprehensible  to  the  finite 
mind,  all  perfections,  all  true  reality  possessed  by  created  and 
potential  beings.  He  includes  in  himself  whatever  there  is  of 
reality  or  perfection  in  matter,  the  last  and  most  imperfect  of 
beings,  but  without  its  imperfection,  its  limitation,  its  nothing- 
ness ;  for  there  is  no  nothingness  in  being,  no  limitation  in  the 
infinite  of  every  kind." 

Thus,  "  our  God  is  all  that  he  is  wherever  he  is  present, 
and  he  is  omnipresent."  Malebranche  does  not  take  the 
pains  to  conclude  otherwise,  or  to  add:  As  God  is  Being, 
and  can  be  none  other,  and  as  Being  necessarily  exists, 
therefore  God  exists. 

This  is  Saint  Anselm's  proof,  and  Descartes'  second  proof, 
that  which  he  sums  up  thus:  We  have  the  idea  of  God, 
therefore  he  exists,  for  that  idea  implies  his  existence. 

But  to  this  proof  Malebranche  instantly  makes  answer, 
through  the  mouth  of  the  adversary,  with  the  objection  which 

1  Conversation  between  a  Christian  Philosopher  and  a  Chinese  Philosopher, 
ii.  365  (Paris,  1837). 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    225 

might  be  expected:  We  admit  that  the  idea  of  infinity 
includes  the  idea  of  Being;  "but  we  deny  that  infinity 
exists." 1 

This  is  the  same  objection  made  by  Saint  Thomas  to  Saint 
Anselm's  proof :  "  The  atheist,"  said  he,  "  denies  the  very  fact 
that  infinity  exists." 

Malebranche  answers  this  objection  with  Descartes'  first 
proof:  I  have  the  idea  of  God,  therefore  he  exists;  for  he 
alone  could  inspire  me  with  that  idea. 

"  This,"  says  Malebranche,  "  is  a  very  simple  and  very  natural 
proof  of  God's  existence,  the  most  simple  of  all  those  which  I 
could  give  you. 

"  To  think  of  nothing  and  not  to  think,  to  see  nothing  and  not 
to  see  anything,  is  the  same  thing.  Therefore  all  that  the  mind 
perceives  directly  and  immediately,  is  or  exists.  ...  All  that  the 
mind  perceives  immediately,  really  .  is.  For  if  it  were  not,  in 
perceiving  it  I  should  perceive  nothing,  therefore  I  should  not 
perceive. 

"Now,  I  think  of  the  infinite:  I  perceive  the  infinite  imme- 
diately and  directly.  Therefore  it  exists."  2 

To  this  the  opponent  answers,  — 

"  I  admit  that  if  the  immediate  object  of  your  mind  were  the 
infinite,  when  you  think  of  it  this  would  necessitate  its  existence ; 
but  then  the  immediate  object  of  your  mind  is  only  your  mind 
itself.  .  .  .  Thus  it  does  not  follow  that  the  infinite  exists  ab- 
solutely and  aside  from  us  merely  because  we  think  of  it." 

Malebranche  replies, — 

"  That  which  does  not  exist  cannot  be  perceived.  To  perceive 
nothing  and  not  to  perceive  anything,  is  the  same  thing.  It  is 
therefore  evident  that,  in  a  finite  mind,  we  cannot  find  sufficient 

1  Conversation  between  a  Christian  Philosopher  and  a  Chinese  Philosopher, 
ii.  365. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  365,  366. 

15 


226  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

reality  to  see  the  infinite  in  it.  Heed  this  well.  Is  not  your  idea 
of  space  alone  infinite  1  Your  idea  of  the  heavens  is  very  vast,  but 
do  you  not  feel  that  your  idea  of  space  infinitely  exceeds  it  ? 
Does  not  this  idea  assure  you  that  whatever  impetus  you  may 
give  your  mind  to  traverse  it,  you  can  never  exhaust  it,  because 
it  has  actually  no  bounds'?  But  if  your  mind,  your  own  sub- 
stance, does  not  contain  sufficient  reality  to  find  out  the  infinite 
in  extent,  this  or  that  infinite,  a  particular  infinite,  how  can  you- 
see  in  it  the  infinite  in  every  kind  of  being,  the  infinitely  perfect 
Being,  in  a  word,  Being  1" 

Thus,  "  nothing  finite  containing  the  infinite,  the  very  fact 
that  we  perceive  the  infinite,  necessitates  its  existence.  All 
this  is  based  on  the  simple,  evident  principle  that  nothing 
cannot  be  directly  perceived,  and  that  to  see  nothing  and  not 
to  see  nothing  is  the  same  thing."  : 

Malebranche,  therefore,  understands  this  proof  thus :  In 
his  opinion  the  idea  of  God  is  an  immediate  knowledge,  an 
experimental  perception  of  God ;  it  is  God  himself  who  by 
his  presence  gives  us  his  idea,  or  rather,  all  ideas.  "This," 
he  says,  "is  how  I  understand  it.  The  infinitely  perfect 
being  containing  in  himself  all  reality  and  perfection,  he 
can,  by  touching  us  with  his  efficacious  realities,  that  is,  by 
his  essence,  reveal  or  represent  to  us  all  beings.  I  say,  "by 
touching  us  ;  for  although  my  mind  be  capable  of  thinking 
or  perceiving,  it  can  only  perceive  that  which  touches  or 
modifies  it,  and  such  is  its  greatness  that  none  save  its  Crea- 
tor can  act  immediately  in  it.  God  is  the  life  of  intelli- 
gences and  the  light  which  illumines  them.  ...  He  contains 
in  his  essence  the  ideas  or  archetypes  of  all  beings,  and 
reveals  them  to  us.  ...  But  gross  and  carnal  men  do  not 
comprehend  this." 2  And,  indeed,  "  the  perception  with 
which  the  infinite  touches  us  is  so  slight  that  you  regard  as 

1  Conversation  between  a  Christian  Philosopher  and  a  Chinese  Philosopher, 
ii.  366. 

2  Ibid.,  ii.  37L 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    227 

nothing  that  which  touches  you  so  slightly,  .  .  .  like  chil- 
dren who  think  that  the  air  is  nothing,  because  their  percep- 
tion of  it  is  unconscious."  l 

These  two  demonstrations,  the  one  through  the  idea  itself 
of  the  infinite,  as  involving  the  idea  of  necessary  existence, 
the  other  through  the  idea  of  the  infinite  considered  as  an 
effect  of  God,  as  Descartes  expresses  it,  and  as  a  vision  of 
God  present,  —  these  two  demonstrations  combined  constitute 
the  entire  Cartesian  proof,  both  rational  and  experimental, 
as  we  have  stated  it.  Add  to  this  the  cosmologic  proof,  of 
which  we  are  about  to  speak,  and  we  shall  have  the  complete, 
manifest,  universal  proof  of  God's  existence  such  as  man- 
kind, wise  or  ignorant,  philosophers  or  poets,  have  united  in 
seeing  and  describing. 


IV. 

In  the  same  Dialogue,  Malebranche  thus  presents  the 
cosmologic  proof :  "  The  proof  which  you  have  just  given  me 
of  God's  existence,"  says  the  interlocutor,  "is  very  simple, 
but  it  is  so  abstract  that  it  does  not  wholly  convince  me. 
Have  you  none  which  is  more  concrete  ? "  "I  will  give  you 
as  many  as  you  please,  for  there  is  nothing  visible  in  the 
world  which  God  has  created  whence  we  cannot  rise  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  Creator,  provided  that  we  reason 
correctly."  2 

In  fact  (we  here  abridge  Malebranche's  long  exposition), 
any  object  whatsoever,  seen  by  us,  proves  God,  because  no 
object  can  be  seen  save  through  God  and  in  God. 

According  to  Malebranche,  God  brings  about  in  us  directly 
and  immediately  all  our  ideas  and  sensations.  He  effects 

1  Conversation  between  a  Christian  Philosopher  and  a  Chinese  Philosopher, 
ii.  366,  367. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  368. 


228  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

them  by  his  presence  and  his  contact  in  the  same  way  that 
he  effects  in  us  his  own  idea,  the  idea  of  the  infinite. 

Here  Malebranche  confounds  two  truths.  He  believes 
that  our  natural  idea  of  God  is  the  direct  and  immediate 
vision  of  God  himself.  According  to  him,  at  least  as  he 
develops  it  in  his  "  Search  After  Truth,"  the  sight  of  created 
beings  and  the  sight  of  our  soul  are  but  a  sight  of  God ; 
we  therefore  see  only  God,  who  effects  within  us,  by  the  occa- 
sional cause  of  our  soul  and  the  world,  the  impressions,  the 
sensations,  the  emotions  which  we  attribute  to  the  world 
and  our  soul.  Malebranche  does  not  say,  with  Saint  Paul, 
"  We  see  God  through  his  creatures  ; "  he  says  the  opposite,  — 
"We  see  his  creatures  through  God."  He  seems  to  forget 
the  passage  from  the  Scriptures :  "  No  man  has  ever  seen  God." 
And,  indeed,  have  we,  such  as  we  are  and  are  born  into 
this  world,  a  "  direct  and  immediate  "  vision  of  God  ?  Who 
can  believe  this  ?  But  we  understand  Saint  Paul ;  we  under- 
stand that  when  we  see  nature  and  our  soul  and  all  creation, 
we  really  gain  a  certain  indirect  and  implicit  view  of  God, 
since  he  is  the  light  which  enlightens  us,  without  which 
nothing  would  be  visible. 

Malebranche  confounds  the  two  degrees  of  the  divine  in- 
telligibility :  here  lies  all  his  error.  He  attributes  to  reason, 
that  is,  to  the  natural  vision  of  God  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul, 
characteristics  which  only  belong  to  the  supernatural  vision 
of  God  in  his  essence.  "  The  dogma  of  the  beatific  vision, 
profoundly  meditated,"  says  Balmes,  "  sheds  floods  of  light 
upon  philosophy.  Malebranche's  sublime  dream  may  be  only 
a  reminiscence  of  his  theological  studies." l  It  could  not  be 
better  expressed.  Yes,  the  dogma  of  the  supernatural  vision 
of  God  bathes  philosophy  in  light,  since  it  reveals  the  final 
perfection  of  reason,  and  at  the  same  time  its  limits  ;  its 
natural  range,  —  its  range :  it  is  a  certain  perception  of  the 
1  Files,  fund.,  i.  27. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    229 

Word ;  its  limits  :  it  is  only  the  indirect  perception  thereof ; 
its  final  perfection:  it  may  be  called  to  see  directly  the 
source  of  light,  the  essence  of  God.  This  is  where  Male- 
branche  becomes  confused.  He  dreams  in  a  sublime  dream 
that  in  his  natural  reason  he  already  has  the  direct,  immedi- 
ate vision  of  God  himself.  Like  Pascal,  he  goes  at  once  to 
the  goal ;  but  while  Pascal,  in  gazing  at  the  supreme  goal, 
neglects  and  despises  the  intermediary,  Malebranche  does  the 
exact  opposite,  and  fancies  that  the  intermediary  is  the  goal. 
He  confounds,  let  us  once  more  repeat,  the  two  degrees  of  the 
divine  intelligibility. 

For  if  now,  upon  this  plea,  any  one  enter  against  this 
great  mind  a  charge  of  pantheism,  I  answer  that  in  the 
seventeenth  century  I  recognize  no  pantheist  but  Spinoza, 

—  Spinoza,  whom  Malebranche   calls    "  that  evil  spirit,  the 
miserable  Spinoza."     Spinoza  was  a  pantheist,  —  consciously, 
by  choice.     Spinoza  loves  the  error ;  Malebranche  detests  it. 
Spinoza  sets  up  falsehood  and  develops  it ;  Malebranche  sees 
and  upholds  truth,  but  in  some  details  expresses  himself  un- 
happily.    This  has  occurred,  on  one  point  or  another,  to  the 
best  and  greatest  intellects.     The  philosopher  who  strives 
for  truth  and  is  accidentally  mistaken,  is  radically  different 
from   the   sophist   who   strives   for   error  and   accidentally 
speaks  the  truth. 

Malebranche  saw  clearly  and  brought  to  light  this  truth, 

—  that  in  every  idea,  every  vision,  every  intellectual  action, 
there  is  the  light  of  God,  and  that  nothing  is  visible  save  in 
the  light  of  the  divine  sun.     Have  we  not  seen  this  doctrine 
in  Saint  Augustine  and  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  ?     It  is  a 
supreme  truth.     But  Malebranche  does  not  fully  grasp  the 
relation  of  the  light  to  the  soul  and  to  objects,  although  he 
distinguishes  the  three  terms  perfectly. 

As  for  the  proof  of  God's  existence,  Malebranche  gives  it 
to  us  entire.  1,  He  takes  his  point  of  support  in  experience, 


230  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

in  the  vision  of  the  soul  and  of  the  world ;  2,  he  sees  and 
describes  admirably  the  divine  impetus,  the  sense  of  the 
infinite,  the  sense  of  God,  —  of  God  who  gives  us  his  idea 
by  touching  us ;  3,  he  sees  the  obstacle  to  the  development 
of  this  proximate  power  "  in  gross  and  carnal  men  who  do 
not  comprehend  it."  He  therefore  knows  the  moral  condition 
of  the  proof ;  in  his  Treatise  on  Morals,  he  develops  it  in  all 
forms,  —  notably  in  chapter  xi.,  to  which  he  gives  the  title, 
"  In  what  Sort  we  must  die  to  see  God  and  be  conjoined  to  Rea- 
son" which  recalls  Socrates'  profound  words:  "To  philoso- 
phize is  to  learn  to  die."  "4,  As  for  the  process  itself  by 
which  we  may  rise  to  God,  it  is  found  in  these  words:  There  is 
nothing  visible  in  the  world  which  God  hath  created,  whence 
we  may  not  rise  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Creator,  provided  we 
reason  correctly ;  .  .  .  since  he  contains  all  true  reality  to  be 
found  in  all  created  and  potential  beings,  even  in  matter,  but 
without  their  imperfection,  limitation,  and  nothingness." 

Let  us  repeat,  in  closing,  that  Malebranche,  by  his  classic 
style,  which  gains  truth  an  entrance  to  the  human  mind, 
rendered  philosophy  the  immortal  service  of  showing,  better 
than  any  other  man  before  him,  the  presence  of  God  in  reason. 
It  was  essential  that  in  the  seventeenth  century  this  funda- 
mental truth  should  be  as  loudly  asserted  as  the  impotence  of 
human  thought  when  isolated  from  its  source  in  God.  Now, 
these  two  truths,  of  which  Pascal  and  Malebranche  each 
maintained  one,  —  sometimes  even  excessively  and  discor- 
dantly,—  Fe*nelon  was  charged  to  maintain  together,  and 
to  bring  the  dissonance  into  a  strong  accord. 

FtfNELOK 
I. 

We  have  already  said,  the  best  of  all  philosophers  are 
the  theologians.  Saint  Augustine  is  deeper  and  more  ex- 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    231 

act  than  Descartes  in  matters  of  philosophy,  because  he  is 
more  of  a  theologian.  Fenelon  and  Bossuet  are  more  exact 
than  Malebranche  and  Pascal,  because  the  latter  two  are 
no  great  theologians.  As  for  Fenelon,  let  no  one  doubt  that 
he  is  an  admirable  theologian.  In  his  dispute  with  Bossuet 
on  divine  love  and  the  soul's  relations  to  God,  he  teaches 
Bossuet  more  things  than  Bossuet  teaches  him,  although 
Bossuet  was  the  victor.1  As  a  philosopher,  Fe'nelon  is  the 
most  exact  of  all  the  philosophers  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  great  philosophic  idea  of  that  century  was  the 
idea  of  the  infinite.  Upon  this  point  Fenelon  is  the  most 
complete,  explicit,  and  sure  of  any.  Strange  to  say,  he 
knew  far  more  about  the  metaphysics  of  the  infinite  than 
Leibnitz  himself,  the  inventor  of  the  infinitesimal  calculus. 
Moreover,  he  avoids  all  exaggerations,  both  that  of  Pascal 
and  that  of  Malebranche,  the  eccentricities  of  Leibnitz,  and 
many  others  beside.  In  every  particular  his  genius  is  well 
balanced,  compounded  as  much  of  heart  as  of  mind,  of 
reason  as  of  religion,  of  impulse  as  of  good  sense ;  in  every- 
thing he  preserves  a  happy  medium,  and  that  completely  cen- 
tral human  voice,  of  which  it  was  so  well  said :  "  Fe*nelon's 
voice  is  neither  a  man's  voice  nor  a  woman's  voice,  but,  like 
the  voice  of  wisdom,  it  has  no  sex." 2 


II. 

In  his  Treatise  on  the  Existence  of  God,  Fe'nelon  gives  all 
the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God  at  length,  consecutively, 
and  methodically.  He  develops  in  due  order,  1,  the  proof 
through  the  sight  of  the  material  world  (cosmologic  proof) ; 
2,  the  proof  from  the  sight  of  the  soul  (psychologic  proof) ; 

1  This  is  shown  in  the  fine  work  by  the  learned  M.  Gosselin,  entitled,  "The 
Literary  History  of  Fenelon." 

2  Joubert's  Thoughts,  ii.  108. 


232  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

3,  the  proof  called  metaphysical,  based  on  the  nature  of 
the  idea  of  God.  He  demonstrates  briefly  the  existence 
of  God  from  the  spectacle  of  nature;  then  he  states  with 
greater  amplitude  how  reason  and  freedom,  which  exist  in 
us  by  the  presence  of  God,  prove  God ;  and  how  the  idea 
alone  which  we  have  of  the  infinite,  gives  us  immedi- 
ately, by  way  of  direct  consequence,  the  idea  of  neces- 
sary existence. 

In  this  treatise  Fe*nelon  corrects,  particularizes,  and 
completes  the  exclusive  points  of  view  of  Pascal  and 
Malebranche. 

Pascal  scourged  reason,  declaring  it  usually  incapable  of 
advancing  to  God.  Malebranche  deified  it,  and  said :  Not 
only  does  reason  demonstrate  God,  but  it  is  God  himself 
that  we  see  directly  and  immediately  when  we  reason; 
reason  shows  God,  because  it  is  God.  Fe'uelon  develops 
perfectly  and  simultaneously  what  Pascal  and  Malebranche 
maintain,  each  for  himself,  far  too  exclusively.  Let  us  see 
how  he  combines  them  into  a  whole  which  is  the  truth. 

In  searching  for  the  proof  of  God's  existence  in  the  spec- 
tacle of  our  mind  and  the  analysis  of  reason,  he  sees,  first, 
in  the  mind  of  man,  that  double  character  of  pettiness 
and  grandeur  clearly  to  be  found  there,  and  which  strike  us 
at  the  first  glance  ;  he  sees  the  perfection  and  imperfection, 
the  constant  disappointments  and  the  infallible  rule,  the 
evident  limitations  of  the  finite,  the  visible  traces  of  the 
infinite :  he  everywhere  asserts  that  in  reason  we  find  both 
God  and  ourselves. 

We  must  quote  these  splendid  passages,  which  should  be 
taken  in  their  literal  sense. 

Having  first  described  the  weaknesses  of  our  thought,  he 
shows  the  idea  of  the  infinite  therein,  and  exclaims,  — 

"  Oh,  how  great  is  the  mind  of  man  !  He  bears  within  him 
matter  to  amaze  and  infinitely  to  surpass  himself,  his  ideas  are 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    233 

universal,  eternal,  and  immutable.1  Those  unbounded  ideas  can 
never  be  changed,  altered,  or  effaced  in  us;  they  are  the  very 
foundation  of  reason.2 

"Behold  the  mind  of  man,  weak,  uncertain,  limited,  full  of 
errors.  Who  hath  put  the  idea  of  the  infinite  —  that  is  to  say,  of 
perfection  —  into  a  subject  so  limited  and  so  full  of  imperfection  ?" 
Who  hath  placed  in  me  that  idea  of  the  infinite  which  is  "  the 
true  infinite  of  which  we  have  the  thought  1 "  8 

This  idea  is  in  me,  but  it  is  no  part  of  me.  Trr\,  fixed 
and  immutable  ideas,  which  are  the  basis  of  rr  xocison,  are 
not  a  part  of  me. 

"  This  fixed  and  immutable  will  is  so  inward  and  intimate  that 
I  am  tempted  to  take  it  for  myself;  but  it  is  superior  to  me,  since 
it  corrects  me,  sets  me  right,  puts  me  on  my  guard  against  myself, 
and  warns  me  of  my  own  impotency.  It  is  something  which 
inspires  me  every  hour,  if  I  do  but  hearken  to  it ;  and  I  am  never 
deceived  save  when  I  hearken  not  to  it.4 

"  This  inward  rule  is  what  I  call  my  reason,  but  I  speak  of  my 
reason  without  grasping  the  force  of  that  expression.5 

"  Truly,  my  reason  is  within  me,  for  I  must  unceasingly  return 
into  myself  to  find  it ;  but  the  superior  reason  which  corrects  me 
in  case  of  need,  and  which  I  consult,  is  not  mine,  and  does  not 
form  a  part  of  myself.  That  rule  is  perfect  and  unchanging ;  I 
am  changeable  and  imperfect.  When  I  err,  it  preserves  its  recti- 
tude ;  when  I  am  undeceived,  it  is  not  it  that  returns  to  the  goal ; 
without  ever  itself  straying  from  the  goal,  it  has  authority  to 
recall  me  and  compel  me  to  return  to  it.  It  is  an  inward  master 
that  commands  me  to  be  silent,  to  speak,  to  believe,  to  doubt,  to 
confess  my  errors  or  confirm  my  judgments;  this  master  is  omni- 
present, and  his  voice  is  heard  from  one  end  of  the  universe  to  the 
other,  by  all  men  as  by  me.6 

"  Thus,  what  seems  most  our  own  and  to  be  our  very  essence, 
I  mean  our  reason,  is  least  peculiarly  ours,  is  what  we  should 
account  most  borrowed.  We  unceasingly  and  obviously  receive  a 

1  First  Part,  chap.  ii.  No.  52.  *  Ibid.,  No.  54. 

2  Ibid.  6  Ibid. 

»  Ibid.,  No.  53.  6  ibid.,  No.  55. 


234  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

reason  superior  to  ourselves,  as  we  unceasingly  breathe  the  air, 
which  is  a  foreign  body,  or  as  we  unceasingly  see  all  the  objects 
about  us  in  the  light  of  the  sun,  whose  rays  are  bodies  foreign  to 
our  eyes.1 

"  In  all  things  we  find,  as  it  were,  two  principles  within  us  :  the 
one  gives,  the  other  receives ;  the  one  lacks,  the  other  supplies ; 
the  one  errs,  the  other  corrects ;  the  one  is  prone  to  fall,  the  other 
lifts  it  up.  .  .  .  Every  man  feels  within  him  a  limited  and  in- 
ferior reason,  which  goes  astray  so  soon  as  it  escapes  entire  sub- 
jection-, and  which  can  only  be  rectified  when  it  again  submits  to  the 
yoke  of  another  superior,  universal,  and  immutable  reason.  Thus, 
everything  in  us  bears  the  mark  of  an  inferior,  limited,  shared, 
and  borrowed  reason,  which  requires  another  to  correct  it  at 
every  turn.2  .  .  . 

"  Now,  doubtless,  the  man  who  fears  the  correction  of  that 
incorruptible  reason,  and  who  goes  astray  from  not  following 
it,  is  not  this  perfect,  universal,  and  unchanging  reason  which 
corrects  him  in  his  own  despite.8  .  .  . 

"  There  are  then  two  reasons  to  be  found  within  me,  one  of 
which  is  myself,  the  other  is  superior  to  me.  That  which  is  my- 
self is  very  imperfect,  faulty,  uncertain,  prejudiced,  headstrong, 
subject  to  error,  changing,  hasty,  ignorant,  and  limited  ;  in  fact,  it 
possesses  nothing  that  is  not  borrowed.  The  other  is  common  to 
all  men  and  superior  to  them ;  it  is  perfect,  eternal,  immutable, 
ever  ready  of  access  and  ready  to  rectify  all  minds  that  err,  —  in 
fine,  incapable  of  ever  being  exhausted  or  divided,  although  it  is 
freely  given  to  all  those  that  desire  it.  Where  is  this  perfect 
reason  which  is  so  near  me,  and  yet  so  different  from  me1? 
Where  is  it  1  It  must  be  something  real ;  for  nothing  cannot  be 
perfect  or  render  imperfect  natures  perfect.  Where  is  this  su- 
preme reason-?  Is  it  not  the  God  whom  I  seek  1 "  4 

Such  is  this  superb  analysis  of  reason,  the  best  which  has 
been  made;  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  certain,  most 
immediate,  and  most  beautiful  demonstration  of  the  existence 
of  God. 

1  First  Part,  chap.  ii.  No.  56.  »  Ibid. 

2  Ibid.,  No.  57.  *  Ibid.,  No.  60. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    285 

Fe*nelon  completes  this  point  of  view  by  analyzing  the  will 
as  he  has  before  analyzed  the  intelligence.  Just  as  he  finds 
in  us  an  inferior  and  a  superior  reason,  the  double  light  which 
Saint  Augustine  called  "the  illuminating  and  the  illumi- 
nated light,"  and  between  which  Malebranche  also  makes  a 
distinction  in  more  than  one  place ;  so,  too,  he  sees  in  our 
will  two  faces :  "  On  the  one  hand  I  am  free,  on  the  other  I 
am  dependent.1  I  am  dependent  on  a  first  Being  even 
in  my  own  will,  and  nevertheless  I  am  free.  What  is  this 
dependent  liberty,  this  borrowed  freedom?"2  Dependence 
reveals  the  nothingness  from  which  I  come,  that  is  to  say  that 
I  am  a  secondary  cause  and  a  finite  being;  my  freedom, 
which  I  cannot  doubt,  is  a  greatness  which  comes  from 
the  infinite.3 

Here  we  have  everything  in  man  clearly  distinguished. 

And  here  we  have  inferior  reason  scourged  and  contemned 
when  it  sets  itself  apart,  as  Pascal  contemned  it ;  we  have 
infallible  and  supreme  reason  deified  as  Malebranche  deifies 
it :  both  points  of  view  are  equally  true ;  but  Fenelon  com- 
bines them  without  confusing  anything,  without  exaggerating 
anything. 

III. 

Fe*nelon  understood  what  few  fully  understand  even 
now,  —  namely,  that  the  marvellous  thing  which  we  call 
our  reason,  "without  penetrating  into  the  extent  of  this 
word,"  is  God  and  ourself ;  or,  more  exactly  speaking,  it  is  a 
relation  of  God  to  us,  in  which,  on  our  side,  we  may  be  found 
lacking,  by  turning  away  and  isolating  ourselves.  Fe*nelon 
knows  that  our  ideas  exist  in  God  and  in  us,  pertain  to 
God  and  to  us.  He  knows  the  true  theory  of  intellectual 
vision,  which  Malebranche  perceives  but  incompletely :  it  is 

1  First  Part,  chap.  ii.  No.  63.  3  Ibid.,  No.  69. 

2  Ibid.,  No.  69. 


236  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  G0l>. 

that  of  Plato,  Saint  Augustine,  and  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas, 
who  (I  will  say  it,  however  much  metaphysicians  may  mis- 
trust images)  held  fast  to  truth  by  an  image,  by  depending 
upon  the  poetry  of  God,  and  comparing  intellectual  vision  to 
physical  vision,  —  a  comparison  of  which  Kant  took  excel- 
lent advantage  on  an  important  point,  and  of  which  philoso- 
phers will  yet  make  greater  use  when  they  have  acquired 
the  true  principle  and  practice  of  comparative  science. 
We  quote  this  comparison,  as  used  by  F^nelon. 

"  There  is  a  sun  of  spirits.  ...  As  the  natural  sun  lights  all 
bodies,  so  the  sun  of  intelligence  lights  all  minds.  The  substance 
of  a  man's  eye  is  not  the  light;  on  the  contrary,  the  eye  borrows, 
every  moment,  the  light  from  the  rays  of  the  sun.  Just  so,  my 
mind  is  not  the  primitive  reason,  the  universal  and  immutable 
truth,  —  it  is  only  the  organ  through  which  that  original  light 
passes,  and  which  is  lighted  by  it.  ...  That  universal  light  dis- 
covers and  represents  all  objects  to  our  eyes;  and  we  cannot 
judge  of  anything  save  by  it,  even  as  we  cannot  discern  any  body 
save  by  the  rays  of  the  sun."  x 

This  is  the  precise  truth  that  Malebranche  describes  im- 
perfectly and  inexactly.  The  soul,  in  its  actual  state,  does 
not  see  God  directly,  it  sees  itself,  and  it  sees  its  ideas  in 
the  light  of  God,  as  the  eye  sees  objects  in  the  light  of  day; 
but  to  see  daylight  is  not  the  same  as  to  see  the  sun  itself 
directly,  although  the  daylight  proceeds  from  the  sun;  to 
see  the  colors  and  forms  of  objects  is  not  the  same  as  seeing 
the  sun,  although  forms  are  only  visible  by  means  of  the 
sun,  and  colors  are  only  the  light  itself  of  the  sun,  broken, 
refracted,  and  partially  reflected  by  objects.  So,  too,  it  is 
impossible  to  say  that  every  idea,  all  vision,  all  knowledge, 
are  immediately  and  directly  the  vision  of  God,  although  we 
can  have  no  idea  without  God,  and  all  knowledge  implies 

*  First  Part,  chap.  ii.  No.  58. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    237 

God,  as  all  vision  through  the  eyes  implies  light,  —  both  the 
source  of  light  and  its  presence. 

This  Malebranche  does  not  recognize.  Malebranche's 
lofty  intelligence  is  dazzled  by  the  most  admirable  of 
truths,  —  namely,  "  that  if  we  do  not  see  God  in  some  man- 
ner, we  shall  not  see  anything ; " l  that  we  see  everything, 
without  exception,  in  the  light  of  God,  and  that  in  a  certain 
sense  we  see  God  in  all  vision,  spiritual  or  corporeal.  But 
Malebranche  believes  that  this  necessary  vision  of  God, 
which  all  vision  and  all  thought  imply,  "  is  the  direct  and 
immediate  vision  of  God ; " 2  that  we  see  nothing,  even  ma- 
terial bodies,  save  by  seeing  their  ideas,  which  exist  in  God, 
and  which  are'  God.3  So  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  for 
him  to  distinguish  between  the  two  degrees  of  the  divine 
intelligibility.  This1  distinction  is  the  capital  truth  that  he 
lacks.  He  half  perceives  it  when  the  objection  is  offered ; 
but  if  he  for  a  moment  forsakes  his  error,  it  is  only  to 
return  to  it  speedily.  "  No,"  he  says,  "  we  cannot  conclude 
that  spirits  see  God's  essence,  from  the  fact  that  they  see  all 
things  in  God  in  this  manner.  .  .  .  For  we  see  not  so  much 
the  ideas  of  things,  as  the  things  themselves  which  the  ideas 
represent ;  for  instance,  when  we  see  a  square,  we  do  not  say 
that  we  see  the  idea  of  that  square  which  is  united  to  the 
mind,  but  only  the  square  which  is  on  the  exterior.  .  .  .  We 
do  not  say  that  we  see  God  by  seeing  truths,  but  by  seeing 
the  ideas  of  those  truths.  ...  To  our  thinking,  we  see  God 
when  we  see  eternal  truths  ;  not  that  these  truths  are  God, 
but  because  the  ideas  on  which  these  truths  depend  exist 
in  God."4 

Malebranche   here   renounces   his   error,  and  teaches   no 

1  Search  after  Truth,  book  iii.  part  ii.  chap.  vL 

2  Ibid.,  chap.  vii. 
»  Ibid.,  chap.  ix. 

*  Ibid.,  book  ii.  chap.  XL 


238  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

other  than  the  theory  of  Plato,  Saint  Augustine,  and  Saint 
Thomas,1  which  is  the  truth.  But  he  does  not  stand  fast ; 
his  dazzled  condition  carries  him  away,  and  in  the  selfsame 
pages  he  maintains  —  it  is  his  ruling  idea  —  that  "  God 
shows  all  things  to  spirits  simply  by  desiring  that  they  shall 
see  what  is  most  central  in  themselves ;  that  is,  that  which 
in  him  is  in  relation  with  those  things  and  represents 
them.2  ...  It  is,"  he  says,  "  only  God  that  we  see  with 
direct  and  immediate  vision.  It  is  only  he  who  can  en- 
lighten the  mind  by  his  own  substance.  .  .  .  We  know 
things  by  their  ideas,  —  that  is,  in  God.  ...  It  is  in  God 
and  by  their  ideas  that  we  see  bodies  and  their  properties, 
and  therefore  our  knowledge  of  them  is  very  perfect ;  .  .  . 
for  when  we  see  things  as  they  are  in  God,  we  always  see 
them  in  a  very  perfect  manner."3  Saint  Thomas  says  no 
more  than  this  of  the  beatific  vision  of  the  essence  of  God. 
To  see  things  in  a  very  perfect  manner,  as  they  are  in  God, 
—  in  their  very  ideas,  which  are  God,  —  is  the  vision  of 
God's  essence.  Malebranche's  error,  therefore,  plainly  con- 
sists, as  Balme's  has  observed,  in  his  failure  to  distinguish 
the  beatific  vision  from  that  natural  and  indirect  vision  of 
God  without  which  we  can  see  nothing.  As  a  theologian, 
he  can  evade  this  objection  only  by  contradicting  himself 
and  momentarily  deserting  his  system.  He  grants,  in  the 
sixth  chapter,  that  in  natural  knowledge  what  spirits  "  see 
in  God  is  very  imperfect,  and  God  is  very  perfect."  Hav- 
ing thus  answered  the  objection,  he  asserts  in  chapter  vii. 
"  that  it  is  in  God  and  by  their  ideas  that  we  see  bodies, 
and  that  we  have  a  very  perfect  knowledge  of  them."  This 
is  what  may  be  called  in  Malebranche  a  dazzled  bewilder- 

1  Omnis  cognoscens,  cognoscit  implicite  Deum  in  quolibet  cognito.  — Ferit., 
q.  xxii.  2,  lm. 

2  Search  after  Truth,  chap.  vi. 
8  Ibid. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    239 

ment.  But  F^nelon  here  seems  to  us  to  see  the  whole  truth, 
without  confusion  or  exaggeration.  He  asserts  everywhere 
that  "  it  is  the  light  of  God  that  reveals  objects  to  us,  and 
that  we  can  judge  of  nothing  save  through  it.  This  same 
knowledge  of  individual  things,  where  God  is  not  the  imme- 
diate object  of  my  thought,  can  only  be  acquired  in  so  far 
as  God  gives  to  the  creature  intelligibility,  and  to  me  actual 
intelligence.  It  is  therefore  in  the  light  of  God  that  I 
see  all  that  can  be  seen."  l  F^nelon  does  not  say,  as 
Malebranche  does,  that  in  everything  we  see  God  directly 
and  immediately,  but  only  that  we  see  everything  in  the 
light  of  God.  He  does  not  speak  of  direct  vision,  and  this 
is  the  great  point ;  if  he  speaks  of  immediate  vision,  he 
makes  a  distinction :  "  The  immediate  object  of  all  my  uni- 
versal knowledge  is  God  himself,  and  the  single  being  or 
created  individual  .  .  .is  the  immediate  object  of  my  sin- 
gle knowledge."  2  But  how  is  God  himself  the  immediate 
object  of  my  general  knowledge,  —  for  instance,  of  the  idea 
of  the  infinite  ?  "  Who  is  it  that  put  the  idea  of  the  infi- 
nite in  a  subject  so  limited  t  .  .  .  Let  us  suppose  that  the 
mind  of  man  is  like  a  looking-glass.  .  .  .  What  being  was 
able  to  imprint  within  us  the  image  of  the  infinite,  if  the 
infinite  never  existed  ?  .  .  .  This  image  of  the  infinite  is  the 
true  infinite  of  which  we  have  the  thought.  ...  If  it  were 
not,  could  it  be  engraved  on  the  very  essence  of  our 
minds  ? " 3  Accordingly,  our  idea  of  God  is  not  the  di- 
rect vision  of  God,  but  it  is  an  image  of  God,  —  that  is,  a 
vision  reflected  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul.  Here  we  again 
meet  with  the  doctrine  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  —  natural 
vision  of  the  truth  is,  in  the  soul,  the  reflection  (refulgentia) 
of  uncreated  truth.  For  if  Fdnelon  goes  so  far  as  to  say 

1  Treatise  on  the  Existence  of  God,  part  ii.  ch.  iv.  No.  §8. 

2  Ibid.,  No.  60. 

8  First  part,  chap.  ii.  No.  53. 


240  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

that,  when  we  see  the  truth,  "it  is  God  himself,  infinite 
truth,  that  is  revealed  immediately  to  us,  with  the  limita- 
tions under  which  he  may  communicate  his  being,"1  he 
understands  it  as  he  has  just  explained  it:  God  graves  his 
image  in  our  soul,  he  reflects  himself  in  the  mirror  of  the 
soul.  This  is  the  very  doctrine  of  Descartes. 

So  that,  to  sum  up  the  whole,  in  Fdnelon's  simile  the  idea 
of  God  is  the  image  of  the  sun  in  the  mirror :  all  general 
knowledge  is  the  full  rays  of  that  image ;  the  light  of  God 
reflected  in  the  soul  is  then  the  immediate  object  of  intellectual 
vision.  As  for  special  knowledge,  it  is  like  the  vision  of  bod- 
ies by  sunlight;  I  see  bodies  by  their  colors,  partial,  decom- 
posed rays  of  the  universal  light  that  makes  bodies  visible. 
But,  in  that  very  case,  the  eye  sees  something  of  the  sun. 
"Thus,"  says  Fenelon,  "our  ideas  are  a  constant  mixture  of  the 
infinite  Being  of  God,  who  is  our  object,  and  of  the  limitations 
which  he  always  gives  essentially  to  each  of  his  creatures."  2 

IV. 

The  reader  will  now  better  understand  the  admirable 
demonstration  of  the  existence  of  God  derived  from  the 
theory  of  reason.  Fdnelon  proves  God  from  the  spectacle 
of  the  human  mind  as  we  prove  the  sun  from  light.  He 
sees,  in  our  mind,  the  contrast  between  "  a  weakness  which 
strays  and  an  infallibility  which  corrects,  an  insignificance 
ignorant  of  its  own  thoughts,  and  an  unlimited  fund  of  ideas 
which  nothing  can  efface  or  alter."  From  the  sight  of  this 
weakness  he  learns  that  we  are  not  the  infallible ;  from  the 
sight  of  this  insignificance  he  learns  that  we  are  not  the 
infinite  or  the  unlimited  fund  of  ideas,  but  that  all  this  is 
God,  or  an  effect  of  the  presence  of  God.  He  concludes  from 
this  that  God  exists.  It  is  thus  that  the  sight  of  darkness 

1  Part  ii.  No.  53.  2  Ibid.,  chap.  iv.   No.  54. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    241 

informs  us  in  regard  to  light,  tells  us  that  it  exists,  in  itself, 
independently  of  objects,  since  they  are  only  visible  by  it, 
and  are  effaced  when  it  ceases  to  lend  its  aid. 

No  one  has  known  or  developed  better  than  Fe'nelon  the 
conditions  of  the  true  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  The 
point  of  support,  in  reality,  takes  up  the  whole  of  the  first 
part  of  his  treatise.  He  does  not  drop  it  when  he  proceeds 
to  the  metaphysical  proof  through  the  intrinsic  idea  of  th& 
infinite  and  necessary  Being.  As  for  that  sense  of  the  di- 
vine and  that  divine  impulse  which  raise  us  to  God  and 
call  us  to  the  light,  it  is  described  in  these  charming 
words  :  — 

"  Where  is  that  pure,  sweet  light,  which  not  only  enlightens  the 
eyes  that  are  open,  but  which  opens  the  eyes  that  are  closed ; 
which  heals  diseased  eyes ;  which  gives  eyes  to  those  who  have 
none  wherewith  to  see  \  in  brief,  which  inspires  us  with  a  desire 
to  be  enlightened  by  it,  and  which  makes  itself  loved  even  by 
those  who  fear  to  see  it  1 "  l 

Fe'nelon  perceives  the  obstacle  in  these  clouds  of  our  pas- 
sions on  the  divine  sun  ;  he  sees  the  diseased  eyes  closed  to 
the  light ;  he  therefore  knows  the  moral  condition  and  the 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God. 

As  for  the  process  by  which  our  mind  rises  from  the  sight 
of  the  finite  to  the  knowledge  of  the  infinite,  Fe'nelon  de- 
scribes it  perfectly.  He  says,  — 

"  God  is  veritably  in  himself  all  that  there  is  real  and  positive 
in  the  human  mind,  all  that  there  is  real  and  positive  in  material 
bodies,  all  that  there  is  real  and  positive  in  the  essences  of  all 
possible  creatures,  of  which  I  have  no  distinct  idea.  He  has  all 
the  being  of  the  body,  without  being  limited  to  the  body ;  all  the 
being  of  the  mind,  without  being  limited  to  the  mind ;  and  the 
same  of  the  other  possible  essences.  He  is  all  being  in  such  a 
manner  that  he  has  all  the  being  of  each  of  these  creatures,  but 

1  Treatise  on  the  Existence  of  God,  part  ii.  chap.  iv.  No.  58. 
16 


242  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

without  the  limitation  that  bounds  it.  Remove  all  bounds;  re- 
move all  the  difference  which  confines  being  to  species  :  you 
retain  the  universality  of  being,  and,  consequently,  the  infinite  per- 
fection of  Being  by  itself.1 

"  And  when  I  conceive  it  thus  in  that  kind  which  the  School 
calls  transcendental,  which  no  difference  can  ever  cause  to  lose  its 
universal  simplicity,  I  conceive  that  it  can  equally  derive  from  its 
simple  and  infinite  being,  minds,  bodies,  and  all  the  other  possi- 
ble essences  which  correspond  to  these  infinite  degrees  of  beings."  2 

In  short,  for  what  properly  concerns  the  result  of  the  pro- 
cess, and  the  idea  of  the  infinite  which  it  should  give,  I  find 
it  nowhere  given  with  precision  and  completeness  save  in 
Fe*nelon  alone.  Here  is  a  passage  in  which  he  himself  sums 
it  up:  — 

"  I  could  never  conceive  of  more  than  a  single  infinite  ;  that  is  to 
say,  other  than  the  being  infinitely  perfect,  or  infinite  in  every  kind. 
Any  infinite  which  was  infinite  in  but  one  kind  would  not  be  a 
true  infinite.  To  speak  of  a  genus  or  species  is  plainly  to  speak  of 
limitation,  and  to  exclude  all  ulterior  reality,  —  which  establishes 
the  fact  of  a  finite  and  limited  being.  To  restrict  the  idea  of  the 
infinite  to  the  limits  of  a  genus  shows  that  we  have  not  considered 
it  with  sufficient  simplicity.  It  is  clear  that  it  can  only  be  found 
in  the  universality  of  being,  which  is  the  being  infinitely  perfect 
in  every  kind,  and  infinitely  simple."  8 

Nothing  could  be  more  important  than  these  words.  This 
we  shall  see  later. 

In  short,  Fe*nelon  corrects  Pascal  and  Malebranche;  and 
he  gives  Descartes  exactness  and  completion. 

V. 

Fe'nelon  being  our  subject,  we  may  be  allowed  to  say  a 
few  words  more  concerning  him. 

1  Treatise  on  the  Existence  of  God,  part  ii.  chap.  v.  No.  66. 

2  Ibid.,  No.  67. 

8  Letters  on  Metaphysics,  letter  iv.  3. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    243 

Errors  may  be  found  in  the  writings  of  every  man  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  I  ask  if  any  be  found  in  Fdnelon  ? 

Not  that  in  asking  this  question  I  forget  the  matter  of 
Quietism,  and  the  just  condemnation  which  concluded  it.  I 
have  it  in  mind.  But  did  Fenelon  submit  to  that  condem- 
nation ?  Did  he  burn  his  book  ?  Yes  ;  consequently  he 
yielded  to  the  truth.  If  he  yielded  to  the  truth,  he  was  not 
mistaken.  This  we  must  admit,  unless  we  mean  to  impute 
to  him  the  erasures  in  his  manuscripts,  and  reproach  him 
with  the  pages  which  he  flung  into  the  fire.  Let  us  learn  at 
least  to  appreciate  the  greatness  of  a  mind  capable  of  sacri- 
ficing the  first  forms  of  its  thought.  Such  a  mind  is  great, 
because  it  is  greater  than  itself.  The  sacrificer  of  the  false, 
who  immolates  it  in  his  own  mind,  is  not  a  victim  of  error, 
but  a  martyr  to  truth  ;  and  he  rises,  by  virtue  of  the  sacri- 
fice, above  himself  to  the  truth  which  is  God.  "  Leave  self, 
to  enter  into  the  infinity  of  God!"  exclaimed  Fe*nelon. 
Now  that  which  he  has  said,  that  he  has  done. 

Consider,  amidst  the  great  geniuses  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  this  admirable  intellectual  character,  his  perfect 
proportions,  his  firm  attitude  in  the  truth.  Fuller  and 
more  luminous  than  Descartes  in  regard  to  the  theory  of 
ideas  and  reason ;  incomparably  more  exact  that  Leibnitz  as 
to  the  theory  of  the  infinite ;  avoiding  the  bitter  melancholy 
of  Pascal,  who  seems  to  curse  nature,  as  well  as  the  brilliant 
exaggeration  of  Malebranche,  who  believes  that  our  natural 
reason  is  the  very  vision  of  God ;  more  absolute,  more  clear- 
sighted, than  most  in  his  opposition  to  pantheism  and  the 
sophists ;  firmer  and  more  decided  in  regard  to  the  error  of 
Jansenism  than  even  Bossuet,  who  sometimes  seems  to  wa- 
ver ;  truer  than  Bossuet,  too,  in  regard  to  the  theory  of  abil- 
ity and  liberty,  and  the  great  question  of  the  relations  of 
Church  and  State ;  holily  animated  with  a  pious  and  gen- 
erous belief  in  the  future  and  in  the  progress  of  the  world, 


244  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

—  a  faith  very  rare  at  that  time,  and  perhaps  as  rare  now ; 
admirable  for  his  mystic  learning,  which  he  taught  to  Bossuet 
day  by  day,  until  he  made  an  accomplished  master  of  that 
sublime  pupil ; 1  more  amiable,  more  attractive  than  all  oth- 
ers through  the  happy  equilibrium  of  his  courage,  his  intelli- 
gence, and  his  goodness,  —  the  only  man,  in  short,  besides 
Saint  Vincent  de  Paul,  whose  aureole  has  remained  visible 
to  all  eyes  through  the  lapse  of  two  centuries :  consider  all 
these  features  of  perfect  human  beauty,  and  see  if  these 
glorious  pre-eminencies  do  not  seem  to  realize  in  Fe'nelon 
the  words  of  Scripture :  "  He  who  humbles  himself  shall  be 
exalted." 

When  shall  we  learn  what  sacrifice  is,  in  things  of  the 
spirit,  and  what  it  can  do  ?  "Our  will  is  finite,"  says  Bos- 
suet  ;  "  in  so  far  as  it  restricts  itself  to  itself  it  gives  itself 
limits.  If  you  would  be  free,  release  yourself.  Cut  away, 
retrench.  Have  no  will  but  that  of  God."  This  is  the 
moral  sacrifice.  Now  we  may,  by  copying  these  words,  say 
also :  "  Our  intellect  is  finite ;  in  so  far  as  it  restricts  itself 
to  itself,  it  gives  itself  limits.  If  you  would  be  free,  release 
yourself.  Cut  away,  retrench.  Have  no  thoughts  but  those 
of  God."  Behold  intellectual  sacrifice ! 

Fenelon  cut  away  and  retrenched.  "  If  your  right  hand 
offend  you,"  says  the  Gospel,  "  cut  it  off  and  cast  it  from 
you."  Fe'nelon  cast  far  from  him  thoughts  full  of  error  and 
danger ;  but  the  fund  of  truth  which  was  in  his  soul,  and 
which  those  imperfect  and  faulty  formulas  curtailed  and  im- 
paired, was  set  free  by  the  action  of  the  Church,  to  dif- 
fuse itself  into  the  human  mind.  True  orthodox  mysticism, 
theologically  perfected,  dates  from  that  period.  That  is  to 
say,  before  Fe'nelon' s  effort  to  systematize  mystic  science  the 
writings  of  the  most  saintly  authors  contained  inexacti- 
tudes on  this  head,  not  of  intention,  but  in  expression ;  so 

1  See  the  "  Literary  History  of  Fenelon,"  by  the  Abbe  Gosselin. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    245 

that  the  chief  point  of  mystic  theology,  the  final  word  of 
true  wisdom,  was  then,  and  then  only,  defined  and  fixed. 
We  know  that  Fe*nelon's  effort  attracted  the  attention  of 
Bossuet,  who  was  very  justly  moved  ;  Fe*nelon's  vigorous 
and  luminous  defence  taught  Bossuet  the  science ;  Bossuet, 
well  armed  by  his  opponent,  urged  on  the  contest.  The  con- 
test was  judged  by  the  Church  :  the  false  side  of  Fe*nelon's 
thought,  or  at  least  of  his  words,  was  corrected  in  the  most 
just  and  delicate  way ;  nothing  that  he  had  seen,  felt,  or 
written  of  the  truth,  was  touched, —  in  short,  Fenelon's  sur- 
render ended  all  in  peace,  in  unity,  and  in  truth. 

Peace !  peace  in  unity  and  in  truth !  when  will  these  good 
things  be  granted  to  us  ?  When  shall  we  advance  towards 
this  goal  ?  "  Quarrelsome  race  of  men  ! "  exclaims  Saint 
Chrysostom.  Quarrelsome  race  indeed !  Yes,  we  are  born 
to  quarrel,  dissension,  and  division.  Not  only  does  human- 
ity form  two  camps  and  two  cities,  for  and  against  God, 
for  and  against  the  truth,  but,  not  to  mention  here  the 
sophists  and  the  criminals,  behold  the  history  of  the  good 
and  of  those  who  have  pursued  the  truth  with  upright 
spirit.  Behold  them  all  in  presence  of  the  sun :  each  is 
bathed  in  its  rays ;  but  each  considers  his  soul  and  its 
thought  in  that  light,  instead  of  considering  the  light  itself 
in  the  soul  and  the  thought ;  each  limits,  modifies,  and  di- 
versifies the  light,  chooses  the  rays  each  according  to  its 
proper  color,  and  instead  of  understanding  that  all  tints  are 
but  the  same  light,  suppose  that  the  colors  are  contradictory, 
—  as  if  the  vivid  purple  of  dawn  should  deem  itself  contra- 
dicted by  the  dazzling  whiteness  of  noon,  or  the  dark  violet 
of  the  evening  clouds.  I  am  well  aware  that  Plato  divined 
the  necessary  unanimity  of  the  wise,  and  said,  "  All  wise  men 
agree."  Meantime,  Plato  and  Aristotle  are  divided,  Saint 
Augustine  and  Saint  Jerome  do  not  always  agree.  Saint 
Thomas  and  Saint  Bonaventura  give  rise  to  two  schools  that 


246  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

contend  for  centuries.  See  Pascal  opposed  to  Descartes 
and  the  Jesuits,  Descartes  to  Aristotle,  Fe'nelon  to  Male- 
branche,  Newton  to  Leibnitz,  and  Bossuet  to  Fenelon;  see 
all  these  glorious  couples  struggling,  often  even  in  the  sharp- 
est anger!  But  in  reality,  as  Saint  Augustine  affirms  of 
Aristotle  and  Plato,  they  differ  owing  to  accidents  which  are 
overcome  by  him  who  sees  the  true  harmony  of  these 
beauteous  tints  in  the  unity  of  light.  Moreover,  the  separa- 
tion between  Plato  and  Aristotle  is  incomparably  deeper 
than  that  of  the  shades  of  philosophic  doctrine  in  the  Chris- 
tian Fathers;  when  we  weigh  things  well,  we  find  that  these 
very  shades  are  far  less  pronounced  in  the  Middle  Age 
than  in  the  Patristic  age;  and  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  sophists  always  excepted,  the  divisions  are  even  less 
marked.  This  is  undoubtedly  because  the  two  Cities,  among 
men,  are  continually  closing  in  and  becoming  stronger,  each 
in  its  own  unity. 

But  under  what  influence  and  by  what  cause  does  the 
unity  of  righteous  hearts  and  docile  minds  thus  increase,  if 
not  because,  since  Plato  and  Aristotle,  he  who  has  been 
called  the  Prince  of  Peace  has  arisen,  and  the  Angel  of 
Peace  has  cast  upon  the  earth  the  beginning  of  unity? 
That  part  of  humanity  truly  united  to  God  has  assumed  a 
visible  centre,  as  astronomers  say  that  they  perceive  in  the 
heavens,  in  the  formation  of  worlds,  a  period  when  the 
vague  cloud,  the  raw  material  of  the  stars,  assumes  a  centre 
and  labors  to  acquire  regularity,  roundness,  and  unity.  God 
then  lays,  as  Genesis  says,  "  a  firmament  in  the  midst  of  the 
waters." l  So  too,  a  time  has  come  in  history  when  God  is 
placing,  in  the  bosom  of  the  ever-changing  and  scattered 
mass  of  mankind,  the  centre  of  attraction  which  strives  for 
the  increasing  union  of  men  in  God. 

Do  we   not  see,  in  this  supreme  question  of  the  soul's 

1  Dixit  quoque  Deus,  Fiat  firmamentum  in  medio  aquarum.  —  Genesis  i.  6. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    247 

relations  to  God  in  love,  that  Bossuet  and  Fenelon,  who,  by 
themselves,  were  forever  divided,  were  only  reunited  by  the 
power  and  authority  of  that  centre,  and  brought  their  diffi- 
culties, unjust  on  both  sides,  to  it,  —  Bossuet  sacrificing  his 
ignorances  little  by  little,  under  the  ascendency  of  Catholic 
theology  and  the  tradition  of  the  saints  which  Fe*nelon  op- 
posed to  him,  and  Fe*nelon  yielding  wholly  by  a  single  ef- 
fort at  the  first  warning  of  Unity,  to  the  voice  of  the  repre- 
sentative of  him  of  whom  he  himself  had  said,  "  It  is  in  this 
centre  that  all  men  meet,  from  one  end  of  the  world  to 
the  other"? 

Thus,  there  is  in  the  world  a  uniting  force  and  a  visible 
basis  of  unity.  May  peace  then  come  in  unity  and  in 
truth ! 

Deign,  O  God,  ever  to  attract  us  more  and  more,  both  by 
thy  secret  power  and  by  the  firm  though  gentle  authority  of 
the  visible  centre  of  thy  eternal  unity  !  Grant  that  by  con- 
sidering self  less,  we  may  see  thee  more,  —  may  lose  sight 
of  our  diversities,  and  contemplate  thy  unity.  May  we  be 
at  length  permitted  to  divide  light  less  ;  may  the  partial  tint 
of  our  souls  impair  less  the  whiteness  of  the  ray ;  may  our 
mind,  despite  its  insignificance,  and  through  the  disinterest- 
edness that  comes  from  thee,  love  and  seek  the  universality 
and  immensity  of  truth,  and  may  our  defects  and  our  limits 
at  least  never  turn  to  negations  and  blindness.  Give  us, 
with  the  charity  of  the  heart,  that  of  the  mind.  Grant  that, 
as  Saint  Ignatius  says,  a  Christian  may  ever  be  more  ready 
to  accept  than  to  reject  the  word  of  his  brother.  Grant  that 
in  spite  of  the  difficulty  of  language  and  the  imperfect  form 
of  human  thought,  we  may  learn  to  reascend  through  the 
word  of  another  to  the  pure  origin  of  the  ray  which  has  pro- 
duced this  word  and  this  thought.  Grant  that  by  this  char- 
ity of  mind  we  may  learn  to  leave  self  behind  and  reach  out 
after  the  lights  of  others,  and  grasp  in  intellectual  struggles 


248  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

the  aspect  of  truth  which  is  opposed  to  us,  and  which  we 
lack.  Grant,  above  all,  that  we  may  be  docile  to  the  intel- 
lectual unanimity  of  our  Fathers,  and  to  the  supreme  author- 
ity of  the  holy  inspiration  that  directs  thy  Church ;  to  the 
end  that  by  docility,  humility,  and  charity,  men  may  attain 
to  some  communion  of  minds  on  earth,  and,  being  united, 
understanding  one  another  in  God  more  and  more,  may  ap- 
proach that  eternal  goal  of  which  Saint  Augustine  says: 
"We  shall  then  all  see  the  thoughts  of  all;  we  shall  see 
God  in  our  own  intelligence;  we  shall  see  him  in  that  of 

others." l 

1  De  Civitate  Dei,  lib.  xxii.  cap.  xxix.  6. 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

THE  THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY. 
PART  SECOND. 

PETAU  AND  THOMASSIK 

T^VERY  one  knows  that  Leibnitz  wrote  a  Theodicy, 
•"  Fenelon  the  Treatise  on  the  Existence  of  God,  Bossuet 
a  book  On  the  Knowledge  of  God  and  self ;  that  Descartes, 
Malebranche,  and  others  cleared,  deepened,  and  developed 
the  proofs  of  God's  existence,  and  the  way  that  leads  the 
mind  to  the  knowledge  thereof ;  but  scarcely  any  one  knows 
that  there  also  appeared  in  the  seventeenth  century  two 
Latin  Theodicies,  each  of  considerable  length,  —  equivalent 
to  eight  or  ten  volumes  like  ours,  —  and  that  these  two 
works  are  masterpieces  of  philosophic  depth  and  learning. 

Two  great  minds,  scarcely  inferior  to  the  greatest,  —  Petau 
and  Thomassin, — brought  together  in  these  admirable  works 
all  the  substance  of  the  fathers  and  the  ancient  philoso- 
phers, in  regard  to  the  Theodicy ;  then,  with  wondrous  art, 
they  worked  up  and  grouped  the  precious  materials  in  the 
light  of  their  individual  reflection.  I  know  no  books  where 
original  thought  is  better  blended  with  the  thought  of 
others,  where  the  intuition  of  genius  is  more  perfectly  sup- 
ported by  the  power  of  tradition  and  the  weight  of  author- 
ity; and  when  Thomassin  says,  "Thus  decree  the  patricians 
of  thought  and  the  fathers  of  religion;"  when  he  goes  on 
to  proclaim  these  decrees,  all  luminous  in  the  light  of  his 
expositions,  —  we  see  that  he  is  himself  one  of  those  patri- 


250  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

cians,  one  of  those  fathers,  voting  with  the  rest,  and  utter- 
ing his  vote  in  a  voice  worthy  to  be  heard  with  the  most 
illustrious. 

Thomassin  lived  nearly  fifty  years  after  Petau,  who  died 
about  the  same  time  as  Descartes.  His  work  is  longer  than 
that  of  the  famous  Jesuit,  more  complete,  perhaps  still  more 
philosophic  and  more  original.  As  it  would  be  little  else 
than  a  repetition  to  speak  in  equal  detail  of  two  such  similar 
works,  we  will  pay  special  attention  to  that  of  Thomassin. 
We  will  merely  give  an  analysis  of  one  of  Petau's  chapters, 
which  will  suffice  to  show  the  bearing  of  his  mind. 

We  will  take  the  chapter  on  Demonstrative  Theology  ;  that 
is  to  say,  the  process  by  which  reason  rises  to  God. 

We  give  an  abridged  translation l :  — 

"  Demonstrative  Theology  treats  of  what  are  commonly  known 
as  attributes;  attributes  which  are  divided  into  affirmative  and 
negative  attributes.  We  shall  deal  with  them  in  general  in  this 
chapter,  then  in  detail  in  the  ensuing  chapters. 

"This  division  into  positive  and  negative  properties  is  usual 
only  with  the  ancient  theologians :  it  is  owing  to  the  fact,  as  Saint 
Cyril  observes,  that  we  know  in  two  ways  that  which  it  is  fit  that 
we  should  assert  regarding  the  divine  substance  :  we  know  God 
from  what  he  is,  and  from  what  he  is  not.  Saint  Dionysius,  in  his 
Mystic  Theology,  has  done  more  than  any  one  else  to  point  out  this 
twofold  way  :  '  We  must,'  he  says, '  posit  in  God  all  affirmations 
which  are  true  of  all  things,  and  they  are  true  of  him,  because  he 
is  the  cause  of  all ;  but  then  we  must  deny  them,  because  he  is 
superior  to  all,  and  we  should  not  suppose  that  these  negations  are 
contrary  to  those  affirmations ;  and  certainly  the  First  Cause  is 
superior  to  these  negations,  being  superior  to  all  negation  and  even 
all  affirmation.'  The  same  author  remarks  elsewhere  that  the 
Scripture  adopts  sometimes  one  and  sometimes  the  other  of  these 
two  modes :  for  it  sometimes  culls  God  Reason,  Mind,  Substance, 
Light  and  Life ;  sometimes  designates  him  by  very  different  terms, 
as  when  it  declares  that  he  is  invisible,  infinite,  and  incomprehensible, 

1  Theologicorum  Dogmatum,  lib.  i.  cap.  v. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    251 

and  by  other  terms  which  express,  not  what  he  is,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, what  he  is  not. 

"This  is  elegantly  summed  up  by  Saint  Gregory  Nazianzen 
in  the  words :  *  End  of  all,  thou  art  one,  thou  art  all  that  is, 
being  neither  one  nor  all.' l 

"  Theology,  therefore,  seeks  God  by  this  twofold  process  of  affir- 
mation and  negation ;  but  negation,  according  to  Saint  Dionysius 
and  other  Fathers,  is  more  potent  here  than  even  affirmation,  which 
he  explains  as  follows  in  his  celestial  hierarchy.  '  It  is,'  he  says, 
*  because  in  denying  his  identity  with  the  things  we  see,  we  speak 
truly,  and  thus  attain,  although  indirectly,  his  substance  raised  above 
all  other  substance,  and  his  infinity  incomprehensible  to  the  mind  as  to 
all  speech.' 

"  In  fact,  these  negations,  as  Saint  Dionysius  says  elsewhere,  in 
no  way  signify  that  there  is  in  God  any  privation  of  that  which  they 
deny,  but,  on  the  contrary,  excess  and  plenitude.  To  say  of  God  that 
he  is  not  substance,  means  that  he  is  infinite  substance;  to  say 
that  he  is  not  life,  means  that  he  is  supreme  life  ;  to  say  that  he 
is  not  thought,  means  that  he  is  sovereign  thought.2  This  is  sup- 
ported by  Saint  Maximus  when  he  remarks  that  negations  are 
more  efficacious  than  assertions  in  God. 

"Nevertheless,  if  negative  statements  are  superior  in  exactness 
to  affirmative  ones,  still  the  latter  should  be  maintained ;  the  two 
should  be  combined  and  modified  one  by  the  other.  These  negi- 
tions  and  affirmations  are  not  contradictory,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
they  support  and  complete  one  another.  And,  as  Theodore  Abu- 
cara  says,  positive  properties  should  be  attributed  to  God,  as  well 
as  negative  ones,  in  such  manner  as  to  transfer  to  God  all  the  per- 
fections of  our  souls,  taking  away,  by  negation,  all  that  proceeds  from 
accident  or  fault .3 

"  This  is  very  well  shown  by  John  Cyparissiotus  when  he  de- 
velops the  thought  that  negation  is  far  from  refusing  to  God  what 
affirmation  attributes  to  him. 

"Very  far  from  this,  affirmative  statements,  positive  notions, 
are,  by  these  negations,  extended  and  made  perfect :  negation  wipes 
away  and  removes  everything  in  the  affirmation  which  is  gross,  nar- 

1  Tu  finis  cunctorum,  unus,  simul  omnia,  nullus, 
Non  unus,  non  cuncta. 

2  Dion.,  cap.  iv.  de  Divin.  non.  8  Theod.  Abuc.,  opusc.  tert. 


252  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

row,  or  borrowed  from  the  creature  whence  it  proceeds ;  the  idea 
remains,  purer,  more  transparent,  worthier  of  God.  As  if  marble, 
says  Saint  Dionysius,  contained  innate  statues :  the  hand  of  the 
artist  need  only  remove  that  which  conceals  them,  and  could  un- 
veil these  hidden  beauties  by  removing  that  which  is  not  they. 
This  Maximus  makes  still  clearer  by  his  charming  comments.  He 
says  that  there  are  two  sorts  of  natural  cameos,  —  those  which  the 
artist  takes  from  the  lump  without  adding  anything,  and  which  he 
draws  by  removal ;  and  those  which  Euripides  calls  innate  forms 
(avrojjLopfoi) :  as  when  Nature  herself  creates  a  design  in  a  precious 
stone.  Such  was  that  cameo  of  Pyrrhus  mentioned  by  Pliny,1 
where  the  Nine  Muses  and  Apollo  with  his  lyre  were  engraved,  not 
by  the  hand  or  art  of  any  man,  but  by  Nature  herself,  which  had 
so  disposed  the  forms  and  shades  of  the  stone  as  to  produce  these 
figures,  and  even  to  give  each  of  the  nine  sisters  all  her  attributes 
in  minute  detail.  In  this  case,  the  artist,  without  touching  the 
material  itself,  had  only  to  remove  the  waste  and  smooth  off  the 
roughness  to  reveal  the  innate  masterpiece.  This  comparison  ad- 
mirably befits  the  notion  of  God  shaped  in  us  by  the  process  of 
theological  elimination,  —  a  process  which  Plotirms  believed  to  be 
universal,  because  we  know  in  general  the  nature  of  a  being  if  we 
take  everything  accidental  from  it.  '  To  know  any  nature,'  he  says, 
*  we  must  see  it  in  its  purity  ;  knowledge  is  prevented  by  accidental 
additions  to  its  essence.  Therefore  we  should  seek  the  essence  by 
eliminating  the  accidental.' 2 

"  All  this  agrees  with  the  thought  of  Aristotle,  who  gives  us  his 
first  category,  not  by  a  positive,  but  by  a  negative  definition. 
Ammonias  discusses  and  understands  it  in  the  same  way.  Alcinous 
compares  this  process  of  rising  to  God  by  negation  and  elimina- 
tion, to  the  geometric  process  which  rises  to  the  idea  of  a  point  by 
eliminating  the  sensible  forms  of  extension,  passing  from  a  solid 
body  to  the  surface,  from  the  surface  to  the  line,  and  from  the  line 
to  the  point. 

"In  short,  this  process  is  peculiarly  applicable  to  the  idea  of 
God.  For,  as  a  Platonist,  Herennius,  observes  in  an  unpublished 
book,  affirmations  define,  circumscribe;  negations  alone  have  an 
infinite  extent ;  only  negation  has  the  power  to  rise,  from  beings 
restricted  in  their  limitations,  to  the  illimitable  Being  whom  noth- 
ing can  circumscribe." 

1  Book  xxxvii.  chap.  i.  2  Plot.  Enn.,  i.  7,  c.  ix. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY    253 

Such  is  this  chapter  of  Petau's  Theodicy. 

Assuredly  the  chief  process  of  reason,  which  rises  to  the 
infinity  of  God,  which  is,  moreover,  the  universal  process  for 
the  knowledge  of  all  intrinsic  truth,  was  never  described 
better,  never  more  completely  or  more  profoundly  analyzed, 
than  in  this  splendid  chapter. 

How  is  it  that  this  fine  work  is  unknown ;  that  it  is  not  in 
the  hands  of  every  one  who  makes  a  study  of  philosophy ; 
that  the  Theodicy  can  be  discussed  without  a  knowledge 
of  it? 

II. 

Thomassin  writes  Latin  as  Malebranche  does  French,  if 
we  make  a  slight  reservation  in  regard  to  purity  of  classic 
taste.  Sometimes,  in  Thomassin's  rapid  composition,  strange 
excrescences  of  language  and  brilliant  barbarisms  slip  in. 
But  the  wealth,  lucidity,  and  elevation  of  style  are  the  same 
in  Thomassin  and  in  Malebranche.  As  prodigiously  learned 
as  Malebranche  was  not,  he  is  no  less  original.  In  both,  the 
central  idea,  the  philosophic  cult,  is  the  same :  it  is  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Everlasting  Word  considered  under  both  its 
phases,  —  both  as  the  Universal  Eeason  which  enlightens  all 
men,  and  as  the  Incarnate  Word,  the  Saviour  of  mankind. 

In  both  points  of  view  Thomassin's  motto  is  this :  "  Christ 
comes  at  all  times"  (Christus  venit  semper^).  As  Reason,  he 
enlightens  every  man  coming  into  this  world ;  as  Saviour  or 
Incarnate  Word,  he  also  comes  for  all,  and  acts  from  the  be- 
ginning, according  to  the  words  of  Scripture  which  speak 
"  of  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world." 

Hence  the  vigorous  eclecticism  of  Thomassin,  which,  in 
the  light  of  Catholic  truth,  and  supported  by  the  steadfast 
basis  of  dogma,  refers  to  Christianity,  as  its  peculiar  property, 
all  fragments  and  vestiges  of  truth  which  at  any  time  and  in 
any  place  the  Universal  Word  has  sowed  in  the  mind  of 


254  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

men  who  have  cultivated  and  followed  their  reason.  Tho- 
massin  takes  everything  in  good  part,  when  it  is  not  utterly 
impossible;  he  rejects  but  little,  accepts  much.  His  broad 
genius  is  generously  hospitable ;  he  can  always  find  room  for 
every  man.  He  rejects  none  but  the  vicious  and  the  impious ; 
all  who  have  been  serious  and  sincere  in  their  search  for 
truth  are  received.  After  Saint  Augustine,  Plato  more  than 
any  other,  and  all  that  relates  to  Plato,  is  dear  to  him.1  The 
whole  train  of  Neo-Platonists  is  well  received,  and  his  good- 
ness is  not  sufficiently  on  its  guard  againt  Plotinus,  who  gener- 
ally is  half  a  sophist.  He  practises,  even  to  excess,  the  words 
of  Saint  Paul:  "Charity  believeth  all  things."  Nor  ever 
does  this  abundant  and  perpetual  hospitality  inconvenience 
him.  He  remains  free  in  the  midst  of  the  multitude:  he 
contrives  to  live  at  once  with  all  and  with  himself.  He  is 
always  conversing,  but  never  stops  meditating ;  and  while 
entering  into  the  thoughts  of  others,  he  never  abandons  his 
own.  By  the  pertinency  of  his  questions,  and  the  compari- 
son which  he  constantly  evokes  between  the  universal  and 
the  individual  mind,  he  attributes  to  some,  even  often  the 
best,  more  intellect  than  they  possess.  He  is  well  aware 
that  all  the  world  has  more  intellect  than  any  individual ; 
therefore  he  brings  all  the  world  as  near  together  as  he  can. 
The  mutual  penetration  of  free  thought  and  tradition,  of 
theology  and  philosophy,  was  never  carried  farther.  No 
man  ever  labored  more  for  the  reconciliation  of  all  truths, 
the  reciprocal  illumination  of  each  order  of  things  by  all  the 
others.  It  was  his  aim  to  take  up  the  sum  total  of  human 

1  We  know  that  there  are  two  ways  of  judging  Plato  :  we  may  take  him  in 
a  good  or  in  a  bad  sense.  "We  believe  the  former  to  be  the  truer  way,  and  on 
this  subject  we  agree  with  the  good  Franciscan  monk  who  printed  at  Bologna, 
in  1627,  a  book  entitled,  "  Christianse  Theologicse  cum  Platonica  comparatio, 
atictore  Livio  Galante,  sacri  Seraphici  ordinis  Theologo."  On  the  frontispiece, 
the  author  engraved  a  rose.  That  rose  is  Plato.  Upon  the  rose,  to  the  right, 
is  a  bee  ;  at  the  left,  a  spider.  Above  the  bee  are  the  words,  hinc  mel ;  and 
above  the  spider,  hinc  venenum.  Now,  Thomassin  is  a  bee. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.   255 

intellect ;  to  survey  and  compare  its  entire  sphere ;  to  recover, 
by  placing  himself  at  the  centre  of  that  sphere,  its  lost  unity 
and  forgotten  harmonies  ;  to  bring  down  from  the  central 
point  the  universal  light  of  the  Word,  or  catholic  truth,  in  all 
the  circles  and  upon  all  the  points  of  the  sphere ;  to  create  the 
true  encyclopaedia,  and  apply  it  to  the  education  of  minds. 

Besides  his  great  theological  work,  which  is  really  an 
admirable  comparison  of  theology  and  philosophy,  he  left 
behind  as  monuments  of  his  labor  four  fine  works,  even 
less  known  than  his  Theological  Dogmas,  —  "  Christian  Meth- 
ods of  Studying  and  Teaching  Philosophy;"  "Grammar;" 
"Historians;"  "Poets." 

Lastly,  Thomassin  elaborates  his  views  in  regard  also  to 
"  the  mode  of  referring  to  God  even  physics  and  natural  his- 
tory, which  is  one  of  the  finest  parts  of  Philosophy,  most 
important,  useful,  and  instructive."  It  is  certainly  high 
time  to  follow  these  hints  of  genius  given  us  by  the  seven- 
teenth century,  if  we  desire  to  renew  science,  letters,  and 
philosophy,  to  re-establish  education  and  instruction,  to  re- 
store public  reason,  and  through  reason,  religion. 

But  let  us  return  to  our  subject,  which  is  Thomassin's 
Theodicy. 

III. 

This  work,  which  forms  the  first  part  of  the  Theological 
Dogmas,  is  divided  into  ten  books,  —  each  of  which  is  about 
the  length  of  Fenelon's  Treatise  on  the  Existence  of  God, 
and  which  bear  the  following  titles :  I.  On  the  Existence  of 
God  ;  II.  On  the  Unity  of  God  and  his  Goodness ;  III.  On 
God  considered  as  Absolute  Being,  as  Truth,  Beauty,  Love, 
and  Life  (where  Ideas  are  treated  of) ;  IV.  On  the  Sim- 
plicity of  God;  V.  On  the  Immensity,  Immutability,  and 
Eternity  of  God ;  VI.  On  the  Vision  of  God  (how  souls  see 
God) ;  VII.  On  the  Knowledge  and  Will  of  God.  The  last 
three  books  are  purely  theological,  and  treat  of  predestination. 


256  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

This  Theodicy,  which  is  the  work  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  summarized  by  a  man  of  genius,  is  probably  the 
most  complete,  scholarly,  and  philosophic  work  regarding 
God  ever  written.1 

We  have  now  particularly  to  analyze  the  first  book,  which 
treats  of  the  existence  of  God.  This  book  contains  all  the 
profundities  and  all  the  aspects  of  the  question,  which  is 
amply  discussed  in  its  pages  by  the  philosophers  and  the 
Fathers. 

All,  according  to  Thomassin,  who  quotes  them,  recognize 
first  in  the  soul  the  innate  idea,  or  at  least  the  natural  idea 
of  God,  —  a  sort  of  anticipated  knowledge,  or  rather  conscious- 
ness, of  God,  impressed  by  God  upon  the  new-born  soul,  or, 
if  you  prefer,  which  the  ever-present  God  never  ceases  to 
offer  it  by  revealing  himself.2 

All  see  this  innate  germ  of  knowledge  of  God  in  the  in- 
nate desire  for  the  sovereign  Good.3 

They  also  see  this  implicit  knowledge  of  God  in  that  light 
which  distinguishes  the  just  from  the  unjust,  —  a  natural  law 
written  upon  every  heart.4 

They  see  it  in  reason  itself,  which  cannot  exist  without  an 
actual  relation  of  the  soul  to  God ;  which,  first  of  all,  repre- 
sents God  by  his  necessary  forms,  —  first  principles,  axioms, 
the  ideas  of  the  infinite  and  of  perfection ;  and  which  also 
sees  God  himself  implicitly,  by  seeing  what  it  sees,  and 
every  time  that  it  judges.  There  is  the  nature  itself  of  the 
rational  soul  which  carries  in  its  essence  the  idea  of  God 
(divinam  lucem  animce  inessentialem),5  and  there  is  the 
actual  and  living  relation  of  the  soul  to  God,  which  shows  it 
God  immediately  (inmediatis  cum  Deo  mentis  congressibus)? 

1  Tardy  justice  has  at  last  been  done  to  this  almost  unknown  genius  by 
M.  Lescoo3ur's  fine  work  on  Thomassin's  Theodicy. 

2  Dogm.  Theol.,  de  Deo,  lib.  i.  cap.  i.  §  1. 

8  Ibid.,  cap.  v.  6  Ibid.,  cap.  viii.  §  1. 

4  Ibid.,  cap.  vi.  and  vii.  6  Ibid.,  cap.  viii. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    257 

Then,  in  the  knowledge  that  our  soul  has  of  itself,  knowl- 
edge that  implies  other  forms  of  knowledge  not  given  by  the 
visible  world,  and,  moreover,  far  clearer  to  us,1  Thomassin 
shows  us  a  firmer  and  surer  point  of  support,  whence  we 
may  rise  to  God,  than  the  sight  of  the  whole  world  could 
afford.2 

Yet  this  rational  knowledge  of  God,  which  we  find  natu- 
rally in  us,  rather  teaches  us  that  God  is,  than  shows  us 
what  he  is.3  That  is  to  say,  it  is  indirect  rather  than 
direct. 

Moreover,  the  existence  of  God  is  also  proved  by  all  crea- 
tion. It  is  demonstrated  by  that  upward  course  of  the  mind 
which  advances  from  the  things  which  are  seen  to  thoss 
which  are  not  seen.4 

Necessary  geometric  ideas,  taken  in  themselves,  also 
prove  it.5 

Both  the  Fathers  and  the  Philosophers  agree  in  recogniz- 
ing these  three  ways  of  proving  the  existence  o£  God: 
1.  The  gradation  of  beings  (cosmological  proof) ;  2.  Intelli- 
gence and  the  innate  desire  for  the  Good  and  the  Beautiful 
(psychological  proof) ;  3.  Necessary  ideas  taken  in  them- 
selves (metaphysical  proof).6 

We  therefore  find  here  once  more,  both  in  Thomassin 
and  in  all  those  whom  he  consults,  the  two  proofs  a  posteriori, 
from  the  sight  of  our  soul  and  that  of  nature,  and  the  proof 
a  priori  from  ideas  taken  in  themselves. 

Thomassin  considers  the  metaphysical  proof  a  priori 
good ;  but  he  does  not  in  any  way  separate  it  from  the  proof 
a  posteriori,  and  the  basis  of  his  thought  is  as  follows  :  — 

That,  in  reality ,  the  starting-point  for  all  knowledge  of 
God,  all  efficacious  and  actual  proof  of  his  existence,  is  that 

1  Dogm.  Theol.,de  Deo,  title  of  cap.  xvi  *  Ibid.,  cap.  xxii. 

2  Ibid.,  cap.  xvii.  6  Cap.  xxiii.  and  xxiv. 
8  Ibid.,  cap.  xviii.                                                 «  cap.  xxv. 

17 


258  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

fact  which  is  commonly  known  as  the  innate  idea  of  God, 
but  that  it  is  essential  to  search  into  it  and  to  describe  it  in 
a  more  philosophical  manner. 

\ 

IV. 

Now,  we  have  here  the  profoundly  original,  and,  to  our 
thinking,  fundamental  theory  of  what  has  been  called  the 
innate  idea  of  God.  It  is  given  by  Thomassin  in  the  title 
of  his  nineteenth  chapter,  and  elaborated  throughout  the 
chapter :  "  Higher,  more  central  than  the  intelligence,  there 
is  a  mysterious  sense  that  touches  God,  rather  than  sees 
or  conceives  him."  (Supra  vim  intelligendi  est  sensus 
quidem  arcanus  quo  Deus  tangitur,  magis  quam  cernitur  aut 
intelligitur .) 

In  this  chapter  Thomassin  posits  and  describes  the  most 
profound  of  philosophic  facts,  which  throws  light  on  all 
psychology,  gives  the  Theodicy  its  true  basis,  and  reveals 
the  true  force  of  intelligence  and  will.  It  is  what  Aristotle, 
without  describing  it,  calls  the  attraction  of  the  desirable 
and  the  intelligible. 

"We  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  this  point,  which  is  the 
introduction  in  philosophy  to  true  and  necessary  mysticism, 
is  the  chief  point  which  philosophy  has  pursued  from  the 
beginning,  without  which  it  can  never  be  completed,  with- 
out which  it  would  lack  all  root,  by  which  it  will  be  per- 
fected, transformed,  and  organized.  This  truth  is  perhaps 
that  perceived  by  the  actual  leader  of  German  philosophy, 
Schelling,1  when  he  says  that  God  can  never  again  be  only  a 
rational  being  to  philosophy,  but  must  also  be  an  experimen- 
tal being,  and  he  sees  a  transformation  of  philosophy  in  this 
new  postulate.  "  It  is  in  this  direction,"  he  says,  "  that  phi- 
losophy is  on  the  eve  of  yet  another  great  revolution,  which, 

1  When  I  wrote  these  lines  Schelling  was  still  living. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    259 

BO  far  as  the  substance  of  things  is  concerned,  will  be 
the  last"1 

We  believe  these  words  well  founded,  and  we  say  that 
Thomassin  handles  and  describes  the  fact  to  which  they 
relate  better  than  any  one.  Moreover,  Christians  only  will 
fulfil  this  prophecy. 

Thomassin  therefore  posits  and  asserts  the  existence  of  a 
divine  sense  in  the  soul,  a  sense  of  divine  contact,  distinct 
from  the  necessary  ideas  also  existent  in  the  soul,  which  are 
a  sort  of  vision  of  God.  According  to  Thomassin,  the  soul  is 
conscious  of  material  bodies,  is  conscious  of  itself,  is  con- 
scious of  God.  Here  we  have  the  sum  total  of  sensitivity, 
which  is  thus  divided  into  outward  sense,  inward  sense,  and 
divine  sense. 

But  the  divine  sense,  note  it  well,  can  only  give  from  this 
contact  with  God  an  implicit  knowledge  and  love  of  God, 
—  a  double  element,  which  must  be  developed  and  directed 
in  us  by  reason  and  liberty. 

Thenceforth  we  know  God  as  we  know  the  world.  Sensa- 
tion gives  our  knowledge  of  the  world  an  experimental,  but 
confused  and  obscure  basis :  reason  adds  to  this  its  lights ;  so, 
too,  the  divine  sense  gives  an  experimental  basis  for  the 
knowledge  of  God,  obscure  and  confused  though  it  be ;  and 
reason  adds  its  lights.  While  we  actually  have  this  obscure 
sense  of  the  substance  of  God,  we  have,  on  the  other  hand, 
a  clear  idea  of  the  evident,  necessary,  absolute,  and  immuta- 
ble truths  which  also  proceed  from  God,  which  are  a  sort  of 
vision  of  God.  Let  us  add  these  lights  to  the  obscure  sense  ; 
let  the  moral  and  affectional  element  implied  in  that  sense  be 
the  mainspring  and  give  the  impetus ;  let  reason  proceed 
according  to  its  law,  according  to  that  simple  and  natural 
process  which  seeks  through  all  things  nought  save  the  uni- 

1  System  of  Transcendental  Idealism,  appendix  to  Cousin's  Philosophy, 
p.  393. 


260  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

versal,  the  absolute,  and  the  infinite  affirmation,  that  is, 
God ;  then  the  genuine  demonstration  of  the  existence  of 
God,  rational  and  experimental,  ideal  and  real,  a  priori  and 
a  posteriori,  as  certain  as  experience,  as  accurate  as  geometry, 
as  beautiful  as  poetry,  as  simple  as  intuition,  as  living  as 
prayer,  is  effected  in  the  soul. 

V. 

But  let  us  continue,  with  Thomassin,  the  analysis  of  the 
innate  idea  of  God,  or  rather  the  analysis  of  that  fact  which 
has  been  called  the  innate  idea  of  God  and  which  Thomassin 
sometimes  calls  the  natural  presentiment  of  God  (naturalis 
de  Deo  anticipatio),  sometimes  the  anticipated  consciousness 
of  God  (anticipata  Dei  notitia),  or  innate  knowledge  of  God 
(innata  Dei  notitia),  or  natural  knowledge  of  God  imprinted 
on  the  human  mind  (notitia  Dei  naturaliter  mentibus  infor- 
mata)}-  Thomassin  makes  a  more  profound  and  complete 
analysis  of  this  natural  divine  postulate  than  any  other  phi- 
losopher has  ever  done.  Malebranche  and  many  others 
regard  it  simply  as  a  vision  of  God,  and  make  a  mistake  in 
their  description  and  appreciation  of  this  sort  of  vision ;  the 
mystics  regard  it  merely  as  a  secret  sense  by  means  of  which 
God  inspires  and  touches  us  ;  Descartes  considers  it  "  the 
mark  of  the  Maker  stamped  upon  his  work."  Thomassin 
combines  these  three  points  of  view.  According  to  him  the 
natural  divine  postulate  is  alike  our  own  soul,  the  image  of 
God,  and  the  image  of  all ;  it  is  our  own  soul  seeing  God  in 
necessary  and  eternal  ideas ;  it  is  our  own  soul  touching  God 
through  that  mysterious  sense  which  is,  as  it  were,  its  root. 
We  must  quote  his  analysis  :  — 

The  inward  divine  postulate  consists  "in  those  ideas  which 
our  essence  implies ;.  in  the  very  nature  of  our  soul,  which  in 

1  Cap.  xx.  and  xxL 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY,    261 

a  sense  and  in  its  measure  is  all  things,  and  which,  therefore, 
as  it  develops,  and,  so  to  say,  deploys  its  constituent  fibres, 
perceives  all  intelligibles."1  It  consists  "in  the  commerce  and 
kinship  of  the  soul  with  the  intelligible,  whose  omnipresent 
splendor  shines  upon  it.  Had  the  soul  no  ideas  either  acci- 
dentally impressed  upon  it,  or  substantially  implicated  and 
essentiated  in  it,  —  nevertheless,  as  it  is  an  intellectual  eye, 
it  has  only  to  open  and  look  about  to  behold  the  omnipresent 
and  ever  resplendent  intelligibles."  2  It  consists,  lastly,  "  in 
that  secret,  incorporeal  contact  wherein  the  soul,  by  its  centre 
and  unity,  touches  God,  and  feels  rather  than  sees  him."  3 

In  the  same  place  Thomassin  also  accepts  Descartes' 
phrase,  "  the  Maker's  mark  stamped  upon  his  work,"  and,  he 
adds,  that  he  accepts  all  these  elements  of  the  natural  divine 
postulate  provisionally  in  this  form,  until  he  can  present  the 
subject  more  precisely,  in  the  proper  time  and  place.  He  does 
this  in  the  third  book  of  the  Theodicy,  where  he  treats  of  God 
considered  as  truth,  as  the  substance  of  the  eternal  ideas,  and 
as  love.  It  is  there  that  he  actually  develops  what  was 
merely  suggested  in  the  first  book,  when  he  treats  of  the 
divine  sense  and  expresses  himself  as  follows:  "Intelligence 
and  will  in  man  correspond  to  God  considered  as  Truth  and 
Love.  But  the  unity  itself  of  the  soul,  its  deepest  centre, 
should  correspond,  in  man,  to  the  unity  itself  of  God,  — 
that  principle  which  is  conceived  as  in  some  sort  anterior  to 
Truth  and  Love."  4  That  is  to  say,  in  sum,  that  a  triple  pos- 
tulate, which  he  calls  the  divine  touch,  the  vision  of  intelli- 
gibility, the  love  of  the  beautiful,  corresponds  in  the  soul  to 
God  considered  as  Power,  Truth,  and  Love.  The  whole  third 
book  of  the  Theodicy  is  devoted  to  the  development  of  the  lat- 
ter two  elements  of  the  divine  postulate.  Here,  considering 
God  as  very  Being,  very  Truth,  and  very  Love,  he  first  shows 
him,  in  so  far  as  the  source  of  ideas,  manifest  in  the  intelli- 

1  Lib.  i.  cap.  xx.  §  i.  2  Ibid.  8  Ibid.  *  Ibid.,  cap.  xix.  §  v. 


262  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

gence.  Here  Thomassin  speaks  of  God  visible  and  present 
in  reason,  in  quite  as  explicit  a  way  as  Malebranche  himself. 
''  There  is,"  he  says,  "  naturally  in  all  men  some  perception  of 
truth.  We  see  the  first  principles  and  all  the  immutable  rules 
of  reason  in  the  light  of  eternal  truth.  Truth  is  sole  mis- 
tress of  all  minds  that  see  it ;  those  that  we  call  our  masters 
are  only  monitors.1  It  presides  over  the  reason  of  every 
man ;  all  consult  it  to  know  that  which  is,  to  dissipate 
doubts,  to  correct  the  will,  and  to  regulate  life."  We  seern 
to  hear  Fenelon  saying  almost  the  selfsame  words  twenty 
years  later.  Thomassin  continues  :  "  Ideas  shine  forth  in 
the  light  of  supreme  truth,  which  is  the  Word  of  God.  .  .  . 
Ideas  exist  in  the  divine  understanding,  in  God  himself. 
There  we  must  posit  them,  and  there  Plato  and  the  Pla- 
tonists  posited  them ;  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  agree  in 
admitting  this.  .  .  .  Ideas  exist  in  God,  they  are  the  Word 
itself,  say  the  Fathers  ;  all  wisdom,  all  theology,  and  all 
philosophy  depend  upon  their  contemplation.  .  .  .  We  see 
ideas  through  the  immediate  and  permanent  presence  of 
truth  in  the  mind."2  We  plainly  hear  Malebranche  and 
Fe'nelon  in  these  words.  Thomassin  develops  these  things 
throughout  the  larger  part  of  his  book  with  a  power  of 
analysis  and  fulness  of  wealth  which  Malebranche  had 
merely  to  translate.  But  Malebranche  did  not  translate, 
he  wrote  the  same  things  out  of  his  own  store;  thus  we 
have  two  witnesses  to  the  same  truth. 

Having  considered  God  as  Truth,  Thomassin  next  con- 
siders him  as  Love,  and  shows  us  the  divine  postulate  in  us 
under  the  form  of  love :  "  Our  innate  knowledge,  our  innate 
desire  for  the  supreme  beauty,  is  the  origin  of  all  love  in 
us.3  God  is  love,  and  we  possess  God  just  as  intimately,  as 

1  Lib.  iii.  cap.  v. 

2  Lib.  iii.,  headings  of  several  chapters. 
8  Lib.  iii.  cap.  xxii.,  heading  to  §  5. 


THEODICY  OF   THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    263 

constantly,  as  familiarly,  as  we  have  love  for  him  and  for  our 
brothers.  Love  in  us,  all  true  virtue  in  us,  is  the  divine 
form  which  stamps  itself  upon  our  soul,  and  stamps  itself 
there  perpetually.  God  is  the  eternal  law  of  love,  by  which 
he  himself  lives,  and  by  which  he  causes  all  intelligent 
natures  to  live."  l 

Such  is  the  genuine,  complete,  truly  philosophical  analysis 
of  the  complex  psychological  fact  which  has  been  vaguely 
called  the  innate  idea  of  God.  God  exists,  the  soul  exists  : 
the  soul  is  conscious  of  all  that  exists  ;  it  is  conscious  of  the 
existence  of  God  through  the  mysterious  basis  of  its  exist- 
ence ;  endowed  with  intelligence,  —  that  is,  intellectual 
vision,  —  it  knows  certain  things  to  be  absolutely  and 
eternally  true,  which  is  in  a  certain  sense  the  vision  or 
perception  of  God  ;  endowed  with  will,  it  desires  to  love,  it 
seeks  beauty,  it  seeks  somewhat  of  the  moral  law  of  love, 
—  which  is  in  a  certain  sense  the  desire  for  God,  who  is 
supreme  beauty. 

VI. 

And  here  let  us  observe  that  this  implicit  divine  postulate, 
in  which  we  have  noted  three  elements,  —  the  touch,  the 
sight  of,  and  the  desire  for  God,  considered  as  being,  as 
truth,  and  as  love,  —  is  essentially  one,  like  the  soul,  like 
God  himself.  God  may  be  known  both  by  the  clear  surface 
of  thought,  where  evident  principles  and  axioms  are,  and  by 
the  hidden  depth  of  feeling,  if  always  those  two  extremes 
are  united  by  a  living  movement  which  shows  their  identity 
and  restores  them  to  unity,  —  a  movement  which  is  at  the 
same  time  instinctive,  rational,  and  voluntary.  This  is  the 
foundation  of  what  we  are  beginning  to  understand,  —  that 
the  demonstration  of  the  existence  of  God,  starting  from 
necessary  ideas  taken  in  themselves,  if  it  be  isolated,  is  in 

1  Lib.  iii.  cap.  xxxiii.,  heading  to  §  2. 


264  GUIDE   TO   THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

danger;  but  that  it  must  rest  upon  that  which  rises  to  God 
through  his  operations  in  the  soul, — in  short,  that  a  decisive 
affirmation  implies  a  voluntary  element  and  an  act  of  freedom. 
The  same  holds  good  of  the  natural  knowledge  of  God  as  of 
the  supernatural  knowledge,  to  which  Christ  refers  in  the 
Gospel  when  he  says,  "  No  man  can  come  unto  me  except  it 
be  given  unto  him  of  my  Father"  —  which  signifies  that 
the  Son,  the  eternal  Word,  the  world  of  ideas,  visible  in  the 
flesh,  appeals  to  man  from  without,  and  that  the  Father,  the 
principle  of  Being  deep  hidden  in  the  secrecy  of  the  soul, 
attracts  him  inwardly  :  swayed  by  that  attraction  and  that 
light,  the  will  which  craves  love,  but  is  free  to  choose 
between  universal  love  and  the  other  love,  self-love,  decides 
and  chooses  either  God  or  an  idol. 

Let  us  add  two  other  remarks  by  Thomassin  himself :  — 

"  I  cannot,"  he  says,  "  omit  indicating  here  two  points  of  the 
utmost  importance. 

"  In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  particularly  the  germ  of  innate 
knowledge,  it  is  that  of  the  innate  love  of  the  beautiful,  which  true 
philosophers  follow  as  a  means  for  rising  higher.  The  reason  of 
this  may  be  that  if  our  affections  always  rest  upon  some  vague 
knowledge  of  the  object,  still,  all  men  are  surer  of  their  love  than 
of  their  knowledge,  and  are  very  conscious  that  they  love  beauty 
and  happiness  without  knowing  what  those  things  intrinsically  are. 
The  knowledges  natural  to  the  soul  are  in  some  sort  inert,  are  not 
felt,  and  are  found  only  by  reflection.  But  our  affections  unfold 
spontaneously,  often  tumultuously,  and  there  is  no  mind  so  coarse, 
so  uncultured,  as  not  to  perceive  them. 

"Moreover,  these  philosophers  have  doubtless  found  it  more 
useful  to  begin  by  using  our  feelings  and  affections,  and  to  lift  our 
heart  gradually  to  the  Eternal  and  Divine,  than  to  attempt  the 
same  transition  by  starting  from  the  necessary  ideas  naturally  given 
to  all.  And  this  because  love,  in  reality,  guides  and  persuades 
men  better  than  thorny  arguments.  Moreover,  it  is  far  better 
to  attain  an  end  by  love  than  by  speculation,  since  the  touch 
of  the  heart  and  its  ardent  embraces  make  us  feel  and  enjoy  God 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    265 

far  better  than  the  intellect.  All  the  more  so  because  that  same 
love  purifies  the  eye  of  the  soul  and  gives  it  the  power  of  divine 
contemplation."1 

VII. 

We  have  thus  seen  what,  according  to  Thomassin,  consti- 
tutes the  true  substance  and  basis  of  the  proof  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  Let  us  now  look  at  the  process  which  illustrates 
that  substance  and  all  these  implicit  postulates. 

I  translate :  — 

"Although  it  be  given  to  us  to  conceive  of  God  through  our 
natural  and  innate  ideas  of  justice,  truth,  wisdom,  goodness,  su- 
preme, eternal,  immutable  beatitude,  yet  these  ideas  are'  but  sym- 
bols, attributes  transferred  from  our  soul  to  God.  Our  soul  sees 
all  these  things  in  itself,  only  finite  and  imperfect;  wherefore  when 
it  transfers  them  to  God,  it  removes  their  defects  and  invests  them 
with  immutability  and  infinity.  We  make  use  of  these  symbols 
to  describe  God;  and  we  are  impelled  to  do  this  by  that  deep 
sense  in  which  Nature  makes  us  feel  that  there  is  a  God :  that 
is,  a  supreme,  incomprehensible,  ineffable  being,  nothing  beyond 
whom  can  be  conceived,  who  can  be  equalled  by  nothing  of  which 
we  can  conceive ;  to  whom,  consequently,  we  must  attribute 
all  conceivable  perfections,  —  perfections  which,  because  of  his 
ineffable  excellence,  we  must  at  once  withdraw  as  unworthy  and 
insufficient."2 

Here  Thomassin  was  defending  himself  against  Plotinus 
and  the  false  Alexandrian  mysticism,  as  well  as  certain  of  the 
ancient  Fathers,  some  of  whose  expressions  contain  traces  of 
Alexandrianism.  Thomassin,  as  is  his  wont,  carries  tolerance 
to  excess ;  he  lets  these  authors  say  what  they  will ;  then  he 
twists  and  turns  their  utterances  and  gives  them  a  rational 
meaning.  He  does  not  hesitate  to  quote  those  mystics  who, 
applying  in  a  wrong  sense  that  process  of  reason  which  rises 
to  the  infinite  by  denying  the  limitations  of  the  finite,  sub- 

*  Lib.  i.  cap.  xxv.  §§  6  and  7.  2  Ibid.,  cap.  xviii.  §11. 


266  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

tilize  and  deny  everything,  and  to  form  the  idea  of  God,  not 
only  wipe  out  limitations,  imperfection,  contingency,  but 
take  to  denying  God  even  positive  qualities,  even  beauty, 
even  being,  even  unity.  Thomassin  allows  Pachymerus  to 
speak,  and  he  exclaims : l  "  Well,  if  I  may  make  so  bold,  God 
is  neither  beautiful  nor  good."  Then  comes  Victorinus  Afer, 
who  declares  that  God  is  not  even  unity,  and  that  he  may  be 
said  to  be  without  existence,  without  substance,  without  in- 
telligence, without  life.2  Still,  Victorinus,  as  a  Christian, 
that  is  to  say,  preserved  from  absurdity  by  faith,  cannot  stop 
there,  and  instantly  adds:  "We  give  him  these  privative 
titles,  not  as  terms  of  privation,  but  as  terms  of  transcen- 
dency ;  for  all  which  can  be  named  by  human  speech  is  infe- 
rior to  him."  3 

Thomassin  resumes,  and  adds .  — 

"  Thus  Victorinus  strives  to  purify  Platonic  theology  (Neo-Pla- 
touic),  and  to  adapt  it  to  Christianity.  He  denies  all  the  concrete 
names  which  may  be  given  to  God,  as  all  implying  some  limitation 
or  imperfection,  even  the  words  for  existence,  substance,  life,  and 
unity,  because  God  is  far  higher  than  the  ideas  conveyed  in  those 
words ;  but,  to  him,  all  these  negations  mean  only  one  thing,  —  the 
transcendency,  the  ineffable  excellence,  of  God  and  of  his  qualities.4 
Thus  these  negations  are,  after  a  fashion,  nothing  but  affirmations 
raised  to  the  superlative  degree. 

"  Moreover,  these  very  words,  the  imperfection  of  which  we  re- 
ject, signify  him,  praise  him,  admire  him  in  his  vestiges  and  effects^ 
as  Cause  and  Creator  of  being,  mind,  unity,  and  all  things."  6 

Nevertheless,  we  must  confess  that  Thomassin  sometimes 
sins  through  excess  of  tolerance  for  the  Alexandrians  and 
those  Christian  authors  who  have  borrowed  from  them ;  or 
at  least,  in  regard  to  the  comparison  or  relation  of  the  finite 
and  infinite,  he  is  far  less  exact  and  explicit  than  Bossuet  and 
Fdnelon,  who  were  both  made  exact  by  the  great  controversy, 

1  Lib.  ii.  cap.  vi.  §  4.  8  Loc.  tit.  6  Loc.  cit. 

2  Ibid.  ,      *  Lib.  ii.  cap.  vi.  §  5. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    267 

whose  result  Thomassiii  could  not  know,  as  he  died  before 
that  date.1 

Several  conditions  were  requisite  before  philosophy  could 
attain  precision  on  this  chief  point  of  metaphysics.  Not  only 
was  the  wonderful  controversy  between  Bossuet  and  Fe'nelon 
requisite,  the  most  admirable  dispute  recorded  in  history ; 
not  only  was  the  decision  of  the  Catholic  Church  as  judge  of 
the  contention  requisite,  - —  it  was  also  requisite  that  Leibnitz 
should  apply  these  ideas  to  geometry ;  it  was  requisite  that 
the  truth  in  regard  to  this  point  should  become  geometrical ; 
it  was  also  requisite  that  the  relation  of  all  these  things 
should  be  understood,  and  that  the  same  truth  touching  the 
relation  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite  should  be  encountered 
alike  in  metaphysics,  theology,  and  geometry.  This  is  not 
yet  thoroughly  understood,  and  it  is  what  we  are  trying  to 
explain.  If  we  succeed  in  doing  so,  it  will  be  a  decided  phi- 
losophical advance. 

We  shall  deal  with  this  point  more  at  length  in  speaking 
of  Bossuet  and  Leibnitz. 

VIII. 

But  first  we  must  consider  Thomassin  from  another  point 
of  view.  Did  he,  as  well  as  Plato,  Saint  Augustine,  and 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  know  the  two  regions  of  the  world 
of  intelligibility  ?  What  did  he  say  of  it  ? 

Thomassin  was  perfectly  familiar  with  that  fundamental 
distinction,  and  devoted  much  thought  to  it.  After  Saint 
Thomas,  he  perhaps  wrote  better  of  it  than  any  other  philo- 
sopher. We  must  not  forget  that  this  distinction  of  the  two 
regions  of  the  world  of  intelligibility  corresponds  to  what  the- 

1  TLomassin  died  in  1695,  and  the  condemnation  of  the  "Maxims  of  the 
Saints"  did  not  take  place  till  1699.  Moreover,  his  "Theological  Dogmas" 
appeared  in  1680,  1684,  and  1689. 


268  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

ologians  and  Christian  philosophers  call  natural  light  and  su- 
pernatural light,  or  the  light  of  reason  and  the  light  of  grace. 

Now,  as  we  know,  in  the  seventeenth  and  even  from  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  hottest  of  the  philosophical  combat 
was  waged  in  regard  to  nature  and  grace,  reason  and  faith, 
liberty  and  divine  power.  This  was  the  contested  question 
between  Catholics  and  Protestants ;  the  Protestants  denied, 
by  the  mouth  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  reason  and  liberty, 

—  that  is  to  say,  one  of  the  two   orders   of   things,  —  the 
Catholics   maintaining  both.     It  was   also  the  question  at 
issue  between  Jansenists  and  Jesuits,  between  Fe'nelon  and 
Bossuet,  —  the  Jansenists   almost   annihilating   reason   and 
liberty,  and  Fe'nelon,  with  the  Quietists,  expressing  himself 
inexactly  and  in  the  direction  of  the  negation  of  the  human 
act,  the  natural  side  of  life.     Now,  Thomassin  stood  in  the 
centre  of  the  fight.     A  member  of  the  Oratory,  but  free  from 
Jansenist  passions,  moreover  one  of  the  broadest  and  most 
conciliatory  of  minds,  he  had  profoundly  studied  the  great 
question  of  God's  relations  to  the  soul,  of  the  natural  to  the 
supernatural,  the  finite  to  the  infinite ;  and  he  must  have 
grasped  this  distinction  of  the  two  regions  of  intelligibility, 
which  is  a  particular  case  of  the  general  question.     A  pro- 
found  psychologist,   who   seems   to   have   sounded   all  the 
spheres  of  the   soul,  —  even  that  spot  so  remote  that  the 
senses  do  not  suspect  its  existence,  as  Bossuet  expresses  it, 

—  he  must  have  seen  in  the  soul  that  region  of  necessary 
and  immutable  truths,  the  sight  of  which,  however,  is  not 
the  actual  sight  of  God.     Indeed,  he  describes  this  degree  of 
the  intelligible,  which  he  distinguishes  from  the  other,  in 
many  places  in  his  Theodicy ;  and  from  this  distinction  he 
derives   consequences  and  applications  of  the  greatest  fer- 
tility and  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  highest  theology, 
as  we  shall  proceed  to  show  briefly. 

"  Where  do  we  see,"  he  says,  "  the  unchanging  laws  of 


THEODICY  OF   THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    269 

logic,  geometry,  numbers,  and  morals  ?  Most  assuredly,  in 
eternal  wisdom  (in  ceternce  veritatis  sinu) ;  and  yet  it  is  not 
outside  of  the  soul  (extra  animam  non  esse).  All  the  doc- 
tors of  the  Church  agree  about  these  two  things,  which  seem 
to  be  opposites.  But  they  reconcile  them  thus :  the  rational 
soul  is  indeed  enlightened  by  the  simple  truth  of  God,  but  it 
receives  that  light  tempered  according  to  its  proper  form 
and  degree"  (ita  et  circa  intelligentiam  et  veritatem  Dei 
simplicissimam  versatur  anima  rationalis ;  sed  ejus  lumina 
pro  suo  gradu  et  modo  temper ata  recipit).1 

The  question  is  even  better  put  elsewhere.2  "  How  can  these 
truths,  these  laws,  these  first  principles  of  dialectic,  of  arith- 
metic, of  music,  of  ethics  and  other  sciences,  be  eternal  and 
immutable,  if  they  are  not  of  divine  substance,  since  save 
God  it  is  very  plain  that  there  is  nothing  eternal  or  immu- 
table ?  But,  on  the  other  hand,  how  can  it  be  God  himself, 
since  we  see  that  they  are  multiple,  and  not  simple  ?  .  .  . 
It  is  very  probable  that  these  truths  are  rays  shed  down 
into  us  (condescensiones  quasdam),  and  tempered  for  us  from 
the  eternal  and  immutable  light  of  the  Word,  which  is  low- 
ered to  rational  natures,  which  suits  itself  to  their  capacity, 
and  allows  the  simple  ray  to  be  refracted  in  them."  3  Tho- 
massin  fully  understands  that  this  light,  thus  tempered  and 
lowered,  "  constitutes  our  reason."  4 

Farther  on,  he  expresses  the  distinction  between  the  two 
regions  in  a  way  which  is  as  profound  as  it  is  simple : 
"  That  incorruptible  wisdom,  that  justice,  that  sanctity, 
which  shines  over  the  soul,  is  a  certain  ray  of  God,  who 
reveals  and  stamps  himself  therein,  not  such  as  he  himself 
is.  but  such  as  they  are,  in  such  manner  as  they  may  convey 
the  divine ;  he  shows  them  that  he  is,  not  what  he  is."6 

1  Lib.  i.  cap.  xxvi.  §  7.  4  Lib.  iv.  cap.  xi.  §  11. 

2  Vol.  ii.  p.  263.  «  Ibid.,  cap.  ii.  §  12. 
*  Tract,  de  Trinitate,  cap.  xxii.  §  7. 


270  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

Nothing  can  be  more  profound  than  these  words.  The 
light  of  the  lower  region  of  the  world  of  intelligibility  is 
God,  —  God  revealing  himself  to  human  souls,  not  such  as 
he  himself  is,  but  such  as  they  are.  The  other  light,  there- 
fore, must  be  God  revealing  himself  to  human  souls,  not 
such  as  they  are,  but  such  as  he  is  himself.  This  is  indeed 
always  the  simple  distinction  between  the  two  degrees  of  the 
light,  —  the  light  of  God  seen  in  us,  the  light  of  God  seen 
in  God. 

Thomassin  sees  perfectly  that  the  first  degree  of  the  world 
of  intelligibility  is  that  natural  contemplation  of  which  Saint 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  says :  "  That  which  thou  canst  see  and 
comprehend  is  the  degree  in  which  thou  canst  contemplate 
God  in  thyself ! 1  These  are  truths  essentiated,  consubstan- 
tiated,  incarnated^  with  thy  soul."2  They  are  copies,  resem- 
blances, images,  of  that  which  exists  in  God  (simulacra, 
similitudines,  et  quasi  imitamenta),  says  Saint  Gregory  of 
Nyssa ;  and  Thomassin  dwells  upon  this,  and  calls  this 
region  of  intelligibility  the  simulachre  of  God  and  his  bril- 
liant imitation  (Dei  simulacrum  et  divinitatis  fulgidissimum 
imitamentum).  We  therefore  indeed  recover  here  "  those 
divine  phantasms  and  those  immutable  shadows  of  him  who 
exists  eternally."  Thomassin  quotes  and  repeats  the  very 
words  of  Saint  Augustine  (spectamina  ilia  ceternarum  ratio- 
num),  and  thus  sums  up  his  description  of  the  lower  degree 
of  the  intelligible.  "We  must,"  he  says,  "maintain  tena- 
ciously (mordicus)  these  two  things ;  namely,  that  those  im- 
mutable spectacles  of  eternal  principles  which  never  cease  to 
illumine  the  rational  soul,  and  are  naturally  allied  to  it,  —  that 
all  these  incorruptible  forms  of  wisdom,  justice,  and  beauty 
exist  in  God,  live  in  God,  radiate  ideas  and  types  from  that 

1  Lib.  v.  cap.  ii.  §  18. 

2  Naturae  quasi  inessentiaverit,  sive  consubstantiaverit  et  incorporaverit. 
—  Ibid. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    271 

source,  and  are  engraved  upon  the  rational  soul,  without 
abiding  there  (non  immigrando  sed  inscribendo)  ;  so  that 
when  we  are  asked  if  we  see  immutable  principles  either  in 
God  or  in  the  soul,  we  must  admit  both  at  the  same  time, 
in  the  sense  that  we  are  well  aware  that  they  can  only  ap- 
pear in  the  soul  if  the  eternal  ideas  that  exist  in  God  are 
graven  in  the  soul,  and  that  we  do  not  presume  to  see  them 
in  God,  unless  it  be  at  so  incredible  an  interval  that  our 
whole  sight  of  them  becomes  enigmatic  and  symbolic."1 

In  short,  this  degree,  as  we  constantly  repeat,  with  all 
those  who  know  anything  of  the  interior  of  the  soul,  this 
degree  of  the  intelligible  is  a  mirror  in  which  we  see  God 
by  his  rays  (nimirum  hcec  specula  sunt,  in  quce  radios  suos 
Deus  ejaculatur,  in  quibus  videtur)? 

But  then,  what  is  the  other  degree  of  the  intellectual 
world,  that  wherein  we  see,  not  merely  that  God  is,  but 
what  he  is,  —  where  we  see  himself ;  a  knowledge  which 
the  impious  man  cannot  possess,  while  he  is  capable  of  the 
other?  This  knowledge,  says  Thomassin,  is  supernatural; 
the  other,  only  natural.  He  quotes  and  approves  of  the 
author  quoted  by  Saint  Bernard,  who  teaches  "that  the 
knowledge  of  God  by  the  immutable  laws  of  wisdom  and 
truth  is  natural ,  but  to  know  that  which  God  actually  is,  is 
a  peculiar  gift  of  divine  grace ;  that  these  two  degrees  are 
distinct,  and  that  in  the  lower  we  do  not  know  what  God 
is  in  himself.3  But  to  know  what  he  who  is,  is  in  himself, 
is  impossible,  unless  we  attain  to  it  through  the  sense  of 
luminous  love."4 

These  are  the  same  two  regions  pointed  out  by  Plato,  Saint 
Augustine,  and  Saint  Thomas,  in  one  of  which  we  see  the 
phantom  or  image  of  him  who  is,  while  in  the  other  the 
soul  contemplates  him  who  is. 

1  Lib.  iv.  cap.  xii.  §  9.  8  Ibid.,  cap.  §  11. 

2  Ibid.,  cap.  ii.  §  18.  *  Ibid. 


272  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

But  we  said  that  Thomassin  makes  a  happy  and  fertile 
application  of  this  distinction  to  the  highest  theology.  We 
know  no  more  admirable  theologian  in  this  respect.  In  his 
eyes,  one  of  the  regions  is  that  of  the  universal  Word  natu- 
rally enlightening  all  men  born  into  this  world ;  the  other  is 
that  of  the  incarnate  Word,  supernaturally  giving  itself  for 
the  salvation  of  the  world.  The  one  is  reason,  the  other  is 
Christ.  Like  Malebranche,  he  knows  the  relation  of  these 
two  names.  He  shows  the  identity  of  the  two  in  their  prin- 
ciples, that  is  to  say,  in  God  himself;  then  he  shows  us 
their  relation,  their  necessary  agreement,  and  above  all  the 
means  and  condition  of  the  passage  of  one  to  the  other. 
Of  this  we  shall  speak  in  its  place. 


BOSSUET. 
L 

Bossuet  plainly  played  a  greater  part  as  theologian  than 
as  philosopher  in  the  grand  movement  of  the  human  mind 
which  makes  up  the  seventeenth  century.  Bossuet,  like  all 
great  minds,  thought  but  little  of  what  he  called  the  purely 
philosophical.  No  mind  of  the  first  order  —  not  Plato,  Aris- 
totle, Saint  Augustine,  Saint  Thomas,  Descartes,  or  Leibnitz 
— ever  made  any  pretensions  to  pure  philosophy.  Pure  phi- 
losophy is  an  invention  of  professors  and  sophists.  Truly 
great  and  practical  intellects  simply  love  and  seek  the  truth 
in  all  directions  and  without  abstraction.  This  is  particularly 
true  of  Bossuet.  He  sought  the  truth  everywhere,  —  in  the- 
ology, philosophy,  history,  and  physiology.  He  had  to  a  high 
degree  the  instinct  of  comparative  science  and  of  the  unity 
of  the  human  mind.  He  applies  and  compares  theology  to 
everything,  and  all  things  to  one  another.  His  ideas  are  like 
his  style,  which,  says  Joubert,  makes  use  of  all  our  idioms 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.   273 

as  Homer  does  of  all  dialects.  All  ages  and  all  doctrines 
were  ever  present  to  him,  as  were  all  things  and  all  words. 

The  human  mind,  says  Pascal,  is  like  the  mind  "  of  a  uni- 
versal man,  in  whom  the  effects  of  ratiocination  are  ever 
increasing,  because  the  whole  race  of  men,  throughout  the 
course  of  so  many  centuries,  should  be  regarded  as  one  man 
who  exists  eternally  and  learns  continually." 

Now,  such  minds  as  Bossuet,  Fe*nelon,  Leibnitz,  and  a  few 
others,  are  the  real  links  in  this  ideal  unity;  they,  more- 
than  ordinary  intellects,  possess  the  life  and  unity  of  the 
great  human  mind;  they  express  and  develop  it,  often 
unconsciously. 

This  mind  of  the  universal  man  pursues  and  maintains  the 
unity  of  its  tasks  even  when  the  individuals  themselves-  are 
ignorant  of  it,  and  is  harmoniously  and  simultaneously  dis- 
played more  frequently  than  we  think.  The  gferious  light 
of  the  seventeenth  century  offers  us  the  most?  striking  in- 
stance of  this.  It  is  thus  that  Bossuet  and  Leibnitz  revealed 
and  determined  the  general  idea  of  the  great  century,  each 
by  an  unexpected  application,  whose  relation  to  the  whole 
they  perhaps  did  not  see  themselves.  Bossuet  applied  the 
general  idea  to  theology,  and  Leibnitz  to  mathematics. 

II. 

Bossuet's  work,  a  work  truly  immense  in  its  depth  and  its 
results,  is  the  reciprocal  application  of  philosophy  and  theol- 
ogy. "Theology,"  says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  "may  re- 
ceive 'somewhat  from  philosophy,1  not  as  to  its  fundamental 
truths,  but  in  regard  to  the  development  and  fuller  manifes- 
tation of  its  proper  postulates."  Moreover,  what  is  all  the- 
ology but  an  application  of  philosophy  to  religion  ?  Has  it 
not  been  said  —  and  justly  said  —  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas 

1  I?q.  1,  art.  5  ad  2">. 
18 


274  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

that  he  merely  translated  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel  into 
philosophy?1  Theology  is  developed,  as  Saint  Vincent  de 
Lerins  says,  from  age  to  age  and  from  century  to  century, 
and  the  wisdom,  intelligence,  and  knowledge  of  mankind  and 
of  the  Church  itself  become  more  and  more  exact  and  lumi- 
nous ;  the  holy  and  sacred  gift  remains  the  same  ;  but  the 
idea  which  men  form  of  it  becomes  broader,  more  analytical, 
more  scholarly.  Now,  Bossuet,  by  his  labors,  his  struggle, 
and  his  victory  over  Fdnelon,  made  clear  an  important  point 
in  mystic  theology  which  had  never  been  determined,  and 
upon  which  the  Church  pronounced  judgment  by  condemning 
Fdnelon's  book.  And  what  is  this  point  ?  It  is  the  great 
and  universal  question  of  the  relation  of  the  finite  to  the 
infinite,  regarded  from  its  most  practical,  most  telling,  and 
most  useful  side  for  mankind.  Instead  of  the  infinite,  let  us 
say  God  ;  instead  of  the  finite,  the  soul ;  instead  of  relation, 
love.  How  is  the  soul  united  to  God  through  love  ?  This 
is  the  question  which  Bossuet  reduced  to  exact  terms,  and 
whose  solution  he  established  by  a  decree  of  the  Church. 

Is  not  the  connection  of  this  question  with  that  of  the 
proofs  of  God's  existence  clear  ?  How  can  the  mind  attain 
to  God  through  reason  ?  How  does  the  will  reach  God 
through  freedom  ?  How  is  the  soul  united  to  God  through 
the  divine  love  ?  These  three  questions,  although  not  iden- 
tical, are  analogous.  It  is  possible  that  one  and  the  same 
universal  idea  may  be  applied  to  all,  and  that  one  and  the 
same  general  metaphysical  formula  includes  them  as  special 
cases.  This  is  our  belief. 

In  fact,  what  is  the  process  by  which  reason  proves  and 
knows  God  ?  We  have  already  said  that  this  process  con- 
sists in  asserting  in  the  infinite,  by  the  negation  of  limita- 
tions, all  the  being,  all  the  beauty,  and  all  the  positive 
qualities  of  which  we  see  any  trace  in  the  world,  and  of 

1  Amelotte,  Life  of  P.  de  Condren  (preface). 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    275 

which  we  find  in  ourselves  any  idea.  And  this  is  actually 
the  process  employed  by  philosophy,  by  poetry,  and  by 
common-sense  to  prove  and  to  know  God. 

Now,  even  at  the  present  day,  in  spite  of  the  philosophy  of 
all  ages,  and,  what  is  more,  in  spite  of  the  common-sense  of 
the  human  race  and  the  poetry  of  all  souls,  sophistry,  ever 
active,  denies  to  reason  the  legitimacy  of  this  process.  You 
see,  says  the  sophist,  limited  being,  that  is,  being  and  its 
limitation ;  why  do  you  assert  infinite  Being,  which  destroys 
limitation,  and  why,  on  the  contrary,  do  you  not  assert  that 
the  infinite  has  limitations,  which  would  destroy  Being? 
Who  tells  you  that  this  is  not  the  absolute  truth  ?  You 
freely  choose,  between  Being  and  nothing,  but  without  rea- 
son. Why  this  choice  ? 

This  is  the  final  question  between  sophistry  and  philosophy. 

Now,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  false  mystics  put 
the  same  question  in  theology.  They  put  it  so  subtly  that 
Fe'nelon  himself  was  wanting  in  precision,  and  did  not  see 
the  whole  difficulty,  nor  all  the  vastness  of  the  abyss  dug  by 
false  mysticism.  The  question  was  this  :  Must  the  soul  an- 
nihilate its  own  being  in  order  to  find  God  through  love  ? 
Must  it  efface  its  ideas,  destroy  its  powers,  and  suppress  its 
faculties  ?  or  rather,  should  it  be  the  reverse  ?  Should  it 
develop  its  powers,  its  faculties,  its  ideas ;  should  it  unfold  all 
its  being  by  annihilating  and  pushing  back  its  limitations,  to 
its  utmost  ability  ? 

We  see  the  relation,  or  rather  the  metaphysical  identity,  of 
the  two  questions. 

Bossuet,  with  steadfast  firmness,  with  the  ardor  given  by 
the  perception  of  truth,  and  the  consciousness  of  a  great 
danger  to  be  repelled,  begins  against  false  mysticism,  against 
what  he  calls  wilful  annihilation,  that  warfare  which,  de- 
spite the  passion  that  men  may  mingle  with  it,  is  his  finest 
title  to  glory,  and  the  greatest  service  rendered  in  that  cen- 
tury to  the  human  mind  and  the  inner  life  of  souls. 


276  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

What  should  be  annihilated  ?  We  should  annihilate  the 
limit,  the  boundary,  the  obstacle,  not  the  Being.  Such  is  the 
general  law  for  the  rational  knowledge  of  God,  as  well  as 
for  the  moral  growth  of  the  soul  in  God,  the  supernatural 
union  of  the  soul  with  God  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the 
transition  from  the  finite  to  the  geometrical  infinite.  So 
that  mystic  theology,  through  Bossuet's  labor  and  the  deci- 
sion of  the  Church,  was  echoed  even  in  speculative  philoso- 
phy, and  confirmed  its  method. 

All  the  war  upon  Quietism,  the  whole  of  the  noble  book 
upon  States  of  Prayer,  the  book  entitled  Mystici  in  tuto,  and 
the  other,  Schola  in  tuto,  were  intended  to  combat,  as  Bossuet 
himself  expresses  it,  "  the  pernicious  meanings  which  some 
persons  give  to  the  words  nothing  and  annihilation  ;  " 1  to 
confound  those  false  mystics  who  annihilate  man  in  order 
to  unite  him  to  God,  as  Pantheism  annihilates  man  before 
God. 

The  repose  of  which  the  true  mystics  speak,  says  Bossuet, 
"  is  an  act ;  it  is  the  most  perfect  of  acts,  which,  far  from 
being  inaction,  sets  us  wholly  in  action  for  God." 

That  death  of  which  the  true  mystics  speak,  is  not  the 
annihilation  of  our  soul  or  its  faculties,  it  is  the  annihila- 
tion of  the  egotism  which  confines  it  within  narrow  limits. 

That  passive  contemplation  of  which  they  speak,  far  from 
excluding,  as  Molinos  says,  "  Not  only  every  image  from  the 
memory,  but  also  every  idea  from  the  mind,"  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  powerful  mental  act,  a  simple  thought  wherein  all 
the  infinite  perfections  of  God  are  combined  in  one  whole, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  permitted  to  human  weakness. 

The  generous  indifference  of  the  saints  is  not  the  annihila- 
tion of  liberty  and  will,  "  it  is,  on  the  contrary,"  says  Bossuet, 
"  the  expansion  and  dilatation  of  a  heart  which  has  no  other 
will  but  that  of  God.  Our  will,  so  long  as  it  is  confined  to 
1  Vol.  viii.  p.  3. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    277 

itself,  limits  itself ; "  let  it  aggrandize  itself,  set  itself  free, 
and  become  free  by  willing  like  God  ! 

Bossuet  had  before  him  Molinos'  theory  of  annihilation, 
that  theory  which  destroys  man,  in  order  that  God  may  be 
all,  —  a  theory  which  modern  German  pantheists  continue. 
Molinos  said,1  "  Annihilation,  to  be  perfect,  is  extended  to 
the  judgment,  actions,  inclinations,  desires,  thoughts,  and 
the  entire  substance  of  life."  Elsewhere  :  "  The  life,  rest,  and 
joy  of  the  soul  lie  in  considering  nothing,  desiring  nothing, 
wishing  nothing,  making  no  effort."  Elsewhere  :  "  The  soul 
should  be  dead  to  its  wishes,  efforts,  and  perceptions,  willing 
as  if  it  did  not  will,  understanding  as  if  it  did  not  understand, 
having  no  inclination  even  for  nothingness."  Elsewhere : 
"  An  inner  soul  is  lost  when  it  turns  towards  reason.  Its 
only  reason  is  to  have  no  regard  for  it." 2  Elsewhere  he 
speaks  of  nothingness  with  even  greater  affection :  "  Array 
yourself  in  this  nothingness,  make  it  your  food  and  your 
abode/'  "  Bury  yourself  in  nothingness ;  this  God  will  be 
your  all." 

But,  what  was  far  more  dangerous,  Bossuet  had  to  combat 
a  multitude  of  inexact  expressions,  used  by  many  orthodox 
mystics,  quoted,  commented  on,  and  collected  by  Fdnelon,  to 
such  a  point  that  the  most  enlightened  minds  might  well 
hesitate  in  regard  to  the  precise  doctrine  of  the  relation  of 
the  soul  to  God  in  prayer.  Bossuet  raised  the  entire  ques- 
tion, and  obtained  a  decision  which  fixed  this  most  important 
point,  and  was  given  with  that  sort  of  mathematical  exacti- 
tude which  marks  all  the  pronouncements  of  the  Church. 

But  here  is  not  the  place  to  develop  this  point.  It  is 
enough  to  indicate  it,  and  to  show  its  relation  to  the  Theodicy 
and  to  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  Let  us  come  to 
the  Theodicy  itself. 

1  Instruction  in  regard  to  States  of  Prayer,  book  iii.  (beginning). 

2  Molinos,  Guide,  liv.  iii.  ch.  viii. 


278  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 


III. 

Bossuet's  work  on  philosophy  begins  thus  :  "  Wisdom  con- 
sists in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  self.  Knowledge  of  self 
should  raise  us  to  the  knowledge  of  God." 

In  these  first  words  Bossuet  points  out  the  course  of  his 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God. 

He  begins,  like  all  men,  with  the  spectacle  of  creation  : 

"  All  that  shows  order,  accurate  proportions,  and  means  adapted 
to  produce  certain  ends,  also  shows  an  express  purpose ;  conse- 
quently, a  fixed  intention,  a  regulated  intelligence,  and  a  perfect 
art.1 

"  If  art  be  requisite  to  observe  this  harmony  and  accuracy,  so 
much  the  more  is  it  necessary  to  establish  them. 

"Thus,  by  the  term  nature  we  understand  a  deep  wisdom, 
which  develops  in  order  and  according  to  accurate  laws  all  the 
movements  which  we  see. 

"  But  of  all  the  works  of  nature,  man  is  undoubtedly  the  one 
in  which  the  design  is  most  continuous." 

Bossuet  states  this  point  at  length,  and  from  the  light  of  a 
deep  knowledge  of  physiology  he  concludes,  regarding  the 
life  of  the  body,  what  Descartes,  Malebranche,  Fe'nelon,  and 
others  say  of  the  intellectual  life,  that  that  life  implies  God, 
—  that  God  is  present  in  it. 

"  It  therefore  appears,"  he  says,  in  conclusion,  "  that  this 
body  is  an  instrument  formed  and  subjected  to  our  will  by  a 
power  external  to  us ;  and  every  time  that  we  make  use  of 
it,  —  whether  to  speak,  to  breathe,  or  to  move  in  whatsoever 
fashion,  —  we  should  always  feel  God  present"  2 

Thus  the  body  and  its  life  not  only  prove  the  existence  of 
God,  they  also  imply  his  presence.  Bossuet  adds,  — 

"  But  nothing  so  serves  to  raise  the  soul  to  its  Author  as  the 
knowledge  it  has  of  itself  and  of  its  sublime  actions.3 

i  Vol.  x.  p.  77.  2  Ibid.,  p.  81.  3  Ibid.,  p.  83. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    279 

"  We  have  already  observed  that  eternal  truths  are  the  object 
of  the  understanding. 

"  These  eternal  truths,  which  every  understanding  always  per- 
ceives the  same,  by  which  every  understanding  is  regulated,  are 
something  of  God,  or  rather  are  God  himself. 

"  We  need,  therefore,  only  reflect  upon  our  own  actions  in  order 
to  understand  that  we  proceed  from  a  higher  principle.1 

"  For  from  the  fact  that  our  soul  feels  itself  capable  of  under- 
standing, affirming,  and  denying,  and  that,  moreover,  it  feels  that 
it  is  ignorant  of  many  things,  that  it  often  errs,  ...  it  sees,  in 
truth,  that  it  has  within  it  a  good  principle  ;  but  it  also  sees  that 
it  is  imperfect,  and  that  there  is  a  higher  wisdom  to  which  it  owes 
its  existence.2 

"  In  fact,  perfection  exists  rather  than  imperfection,  and  imper- 
fection presupposes  it,  —  as  the  lesser  presupposes  the  greater  of 
which  it  is  the  diminution.  .  .  .  Thus  it  is  natural  that  imperfec- 
tion should  presuppose  perfection,  from  which  it  has,  as  it  were, 
degenerated ;  and  if  an  imperfect  wisdom  such  as  ours,  which  can 
doubt,  be  ignorant,  and  err,  still  exists,  —  so  much  the  more 
should  we  believe  that  perfect  wisdom  exists  and  subsists,  and 
that  ours  is  but  a  faint  spark  thereof. 

"We  therefore  know  by  ourselves  and  our  own  imperfection 
that  there  is  an  infinite  wisdom  which  never  errs,  which  doubts 
nothing,  is  ignorant  of  nothing,  because  it  has  full  comprehen- 
sion of  the  truth, —  or  rather,  because  it  is  truth  itself." 8 

This  is  what  we  have  called  the  act  and  fundamental 
process  of  rational  life,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  assertion  in  the 
infinite,  by  the  destruction  of  limitations,  of  every  positive 
quality  or  finite  perfection  shown  to  us  by  nature  or  our 
soul. 

And  not  only,  according  to  Bossuet,  does  the  sight  of  our 
imperfection,  joined  to  the  possession  of  eternal  ideas,  prove 
the  existence  of  eternal  truth,  higher  than  we  are,  more 
subsistent  than  we  are,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  existence  of 
God,  —  but,  moreover,  the  sight  itself  of  eternal  ideas  im- 
plies the  sight  of  God  and  reveals  his  presence. 

i  Vol.  x.  p.  83.  2  Ibid.  8  Ibid. 


280  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

The  presence  of  God  alone  is  the  divine  impulse  that  lifts 
our  mind  to  God  ;  Bossuet  knows  this,  and  asserts  it  amply. 
For,  he  says,  — 

"  We  see  these  truths  in  a  light  superior  to  ourselves.  ...  It 
is  in  it,  in  a  certain  manner  incomprehensible  to  me,  —  it  is  in  it,  I 
say,  that  I  see  these  eternal  truths ;  and  to  see  them  is  to  turn  to 
him  who  is  unchangeably  all  truth,  and  to  receive  his  light.1 

"  And  when  I  actually  receive  that  impression,  when  I  actually 
understand  the  truth  which  I  was  capable  of  understanding,  what 
befalls  me,  if  not  to  be  actually  enlightened  of  God  and  rendered 
like  unto  him  1 2 

"  We  must  therefore  understand  that  the  soul,  made  in  the 
image  of  God,  capable  of  understanding  the  truth,  which  is 
God  himself,  is  actually  turned  towards  its  original,  —  that  is, 
towards  God,  where  the  truth  appears  to  it  in  so  far  as  God  is 
pleased  to  make  it  apparent. 

"  It  is  an  amazing  thing  that  man  should  understand  so  many 
truths,  without  at  the  same  time  understanding  that  all  truth 
proceeds  from  God,  that  it  exists  in  God,  and  that  it  is  God  him- 
self. But  he  is  enchanted  by  his  senses  and  his  deceitful  passions  ; 
and  he  is  like  one  who,  shut  in  his  closet,  where  he  is  busied  with 
his  affairs,  uses  light  without  heeding  whence  it  comes."  8 

Here,  therefore,  Bossuet  points  out  the  obstacle  to  the  light 
of  God,  and  the  need  for  the  moral  condition  for  the  knowl- 
edge of  God  and  the  proof  of  his  existence.  Then  he 
adds,  — 

"We  have  seen  that  the  soul,  which  seeks  and  finds  in  God 
the  truth,  turns  towards  him  to  conceive  of  it.  But  what  is  it  to 
turn  towards  God  ?  .  .  .  God  is  always  and  everywhere  invisibly 
present.  The  soul  always  possesses  him  inly,  for  it  is  through 
him  that  it  subsists.  But  to  see,  it  is  not  enough  that  light 
should  be  present,  —  we  must  turn  towards  it,  we  must  open  our 
eyes  to  it.  The  soul  also  has  its  way  of  turning  towards  God, 
who  is  its  light,  because  he  is  truth  ;  and  to  turn  to  that  light  — 
that  is,  to  truth  —  is,  briefly,  to  desire  to  understand  it.  ...  The 
soul  is  upright  through  this  desire." 

i  Vol.  x.  p.  82.,  2  Ibid.,  p.  85.  *  Ibid. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    281 

Bossuet  understands  that  the  soul  begins  to  rise  to  God 
through  this  desire,  and  he  points  out  that  divine  sense 
which  is  the  simultaneous  attraction  of  the  desirable  and 
the  intelligible.  He  sees  that  the  first  love  and  the  first 
knowledge  of  truth  mutually  imply  each  other;  and  that 
this  double  natural  postulate  is  increased  by  our  concurrence 
and  our  purity.  He  says,  — 

"  The  love  of  truth  supposes  some  knowledge  of  it.  God,  there- 
fore, who  has  made  us  in  his  image,  —  that  is  to  say,  who  has 
made  us  to  understand  and  love  the  truth  after  his  example,  — 
begins  by  first  giving  us  the  general  idea  of  it,  by  which  he  urges 
us  to  seek  for  full  possession  of  it,  to  which  we  advance  in  propor- 
tion as  love  of  truth  is  purified  and  kindled  within  us." 


IV. 

Behold,  then,  God  demonstrated  both  by  the  spectacle  of 
nature  and  by  his  effects  in  us.  But  Bossuet  also  gives  the 
other  demonstration,  —  God  demonstrated  by  his  idea  taken 
in  itself ;  which  is  Saint  Anselm's  proof.  Only  he  does  not 
separate  this  a  priori  proof  from  the  other,  which  is  a  pos- 
teriori ;  he  does  not  divide  the  purely  rational  proof  from 
that  which  is  also  experimental ;  he  blends  them,  one  with 
the  other,  —  he  combines  the  two,  as  is  proper.  And  it 
seems  to  us  that  the  argument  is  stated  by  Bossuet  with 
singular  energy :  — 

"And  indeed,  among  those  eternal  truths  that  I  know,  one 
of  the  most  certain  is  this,  —  that  there  is  something  in  the 
world  which  exists  of  itself,  consequently  which  is  eternal  and 
immutable. 

"  If  there  were  a  single  moment  when  nothing  was,  then  nothing 
would  eternally  be.  Thus  nothingness  would  forever  be  all  truth, 
a«id  nothing  would  be  true  save  nothingness,  — r  an  absurd  and 
contradictory  thing. 

"  There  is,  therefore,  necessarily  something  that  exists  before  all 


282  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

times  and  from  all  eternity ;  and  it  is  in  this  eternal  that  these 
eternal  truths  subsist." 

It  is  plain  that  Bossuet  does  not  rely  here  only  on  the 
pure  idea  of  the  necessary  Being,  and  that  he  blends  with 
that  argument  an  experimental  postulate,  —  namely,  that 
something  exists ;  and  Leibnitz  also  does  the  same,  as  we 
shall  see,  when  he  reproduces  this  argument.  Still,  we  must 
note  that  Bossuet  declares  the  hypothesis  of  nothingness  to 
be  absurd  and  contradictory.  Therefore  his  argument  is 
clearly  a  priori. 

This  argument  is  so  much  the  stronger  in  our  eyes  because 
we  accept  the  principle,  so  fully  established  by  Descartes 
and  Fdnelon,  which  necessarily  results  from  the  idea  of  the 
infinite,  —  that  is,  that  there  is  but  a  single  infinite ;  that 
that  which  is  infinite  in  one  sense  is  so  in  every  sense ;  and 
that  that  infinite  is  God,  aside  from  whom  there  can  be 
nothing  infinite. 

Now,  it  is  certain  that  something  exists  from  all  eternity, 
otherwise  there  would  be  nothing ;  but  that  which  exists 
from  all  eternity  is  infinite  in  duration ;  therefore  it  is  so  in 
every  sense ;  therefore  it  is  God. 

If  any  one  object  that  the  world  has  existed  thus  eternally, 
we  reply  that  the  world,  being  manifestly  finite  in  several 
senses,  cannot  be  infinite  in  one  sense,  —  namely,  in  duration  ; 
for  otherwise  it  would  be  infinite  in  every  sense. 

Moreover,  in  the  Elevations  on  the  Mysteries,  Bossuet 
develops  his  thought  in  regard  to  the  necessity  of  Being, 
that  is  to  say,  of  eternal,  infinite  Being;  and  he  seems  to 
foresee  modern  follies,  and  the  silly  bandying  by  sophists  of 
the  words  Being  and  Nothing. 

"  Whence  comes  it,"  he  says,  "  that  something  exists,  and  that 
it  cannot  be  that  nothing  should  exist,  if  not  because  Being  is 
better  than  nothing,  and  because  nothing  cannot  prevail  over 
Being  or  prevent  the  being  of  Being  1  .  .  .  0  God !  one  loses 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    283 

himself  in  such  great  blindness,  the  impious  man  loses  himself 
in  the  nothingness  of  God,  which  he  prefers  to  the  Being  of 
God!" 

Here  we  clearly  find  the  proof  a  priori  and  the  proof 
a  posteriori  at  the  same  time  distinguished  and  conjoined. 


V. 

We  now  come  to  a  page  by  Bossuet,  one  of  the  finest  that 
he  ever  wrote,  in  which  he  sets  forth  the  practical  process 
by  which  the  soul  rises  to  the  knowledge  of  God.  In  it  we 
again  encounter  all  our  ideas  regarding  this  chief  process  of 
reason. 

Considering  our  reason  and  its  power,  proved  by  the  crea- 
tion of  the  arts  and  sciences,  he  exclaims  "  That  all  this 
would  be  impossible,  that  man  could  not  rule  the  world,  if  he 
were  not  bound  to  God,  the  creator  of  the  world ;  if  he  had 
not  in  himself,  in  some  part  of  his  being,  some  art  derived 
from  that  first  art,  some  fruitful  ideas  derived  from  those 
original  ideas,  —  in  short,  some  likeness,  some  tincture,  some 
portion  of  that  working  mind  which  made  the  world."  1 

"  Yes,"  he  says,  "  there  is  a  divine  light  within  us  :  a  ray 
from  thy  countenance,  0  Lord !  has  been  imprinted  on  our 
souls.  It  is  there,  ...  the  first  Reason  who  shows  himself 
to  us  by  his  image" 

This  could  not  be  better  expressed.  Moreover,  it  is  the 
exact  doctrine  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas.  The  reader 
thoroughly  understands,  from  what  precedes,  that  our  reason 
is  the  first  Reason  revealed  to  us  by  his  image ;  that  it  is 
God  who  enlightens  us  to  make  us  visible  to  ourselves,  we 
who  are  his  image. 

But  it  is  not  enough  for  the  soul  to  see  itself  and  the 
world  in  that  light,  it  desires  to  know  that  light  itself. 

1  Sermon  on  Death,  p.  210. 


284  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

"  So,"  says  Bossuet,  "  all  this  is  nothing ;  and  here  is  the 
most  admirable  feature  of  the  divine  likeness.  God  knows 
and  contemplates  himself ;  it  is  his  life  to  know  himself ;  and 
because  man  is  his  image,  he  wishes  also  that  he  should 
know  him." 

That  is  to  say  that  it  is  not  enough  for  the  soul  to  know 
something,  —  for  instance,  itself  and  the  world,  —  and  that  it 
should  be,  through  self-knowledge,  a  certain  image  of  God 
who  knows  all.  To  know  the  soul  and  the  world,  this  is 
nothing.  Since  God  knows  God,  our  soul  also  must  know 
God.  We  must  make  use  of  that  light  which  renders  us  ra- 
tional by  impressing  itself  upon  us,  and  which  shows  us,  in 
its  radiance,  all  that  the  mind  sees ;  we  must  make  use  of 
it  to  rise  higher,  to  inquire  after  the  light  itself,  and  to  know 
what  it  is. 

And  how  can  we  become  acquainted  with  it,  when  we  do 
not  perceive  it  directly  ?  How  can  we  become  acquainted 
with  it,  it  being  eternal  and  infinite,  while  we  are  conscious 
of  nothing  that  is  not  limited,  and  see  nothing  that  is  not 
subject  to  change  ?  Bossuet  goes  on  as  follows  :  — 

"  Eternal,  immense,  infinite  Being,  exempt  from  all  materiality, 
free  from  all  limitation,  destitute  of  all  imperfection !  What  is 
this  miracle  1  We  who  are  conscious  of  nothing  that  is  not  lim- 
ited, see  nothing  that  is  not  subject  to  change,  where  did  we  learn 
to  comprehend  this  eternity  ?  Where  have  we  dreamed  of  this  in- 
finity ?  0  Eternity  !  0  Infinity  !  says  Saint  Augustine,  that  our 
senses  do  not  even  suspect,  where  didst  thou  find  entrance  to  our 
souls  r' 

How  admirably  the  difficulty  is  here  stated  !  In  what  way 
can  the  mind  pass  from  that  which  is  subject  to  change  and 
limitation,  to  the  infinite,  to  the  eternal  ?  Bossuet  adds,  — 

"So,  too,  if  we  are  all  body  and  all  material,  how  can  we 
conceive  of  pure  spirit?  And  how  could  we  ever  invent  that 
name  1 " 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    285 

Without  making  any  explicit  distinction  between  these  two 
analogous  questions,  he  answers  that  we  conceive  of  pure 
spirit,  because  we  are  ourselves  a  spirit,  and  are  not  all 
body  and  all  material;  then  we  conceive  of  pure,  eternal, 
infinite  spirit  because,  being  allied  to  a  principle  higher  than 
man,  the  soul  is  conscious  of  a  secret  virtue  in  itself  which 
teaches  it  what  the  eternal  spirit  is,  by  means  of  nega- 
tion, by  saying  to  it  of  every  imperfect  conception :  It  is 
not  that. 

According  to  Bossuet,  we  should  not  believe  that,  by 
this  indirect  means,  we  know  nothing  of  the  pure,  eter- 
nal, infinite  spirit  of  God.  We  know  of  it  all  that  it  is 
not.  He  says,  — 

"  I  know  what  may  be  said  in  this  place,  and  justly,  that  when 
we  speak  of  these  spirits,  we  do  not  fully  understand  what  we  say ; 
our  feeble  imagination,  unable  to  sustain  so  pure  an  idea,  always 
offers  it  some  little  body  to  clothe  it.  But  after  it  has  made  its 
final  effort  to  render  them  very  subtle  and  very  delicate,  do  you 
not  feel  at  the  same  time  that  a  celestial  light  issues  from  the 
bottom  of  our  soul,  which  dissipates  all  these  phantasms,  however 
aerial  and  refined  we  have  been  able  to  figure  them  ?  If  you  urge 
it  still  further,  and  ask  it  what  it  is,  a  voice  will  rise  from  the  centre 
of  the  soul :  ( I  know  not  what  it  is,  but  nevertheless  it  is  not 
that.' " 

Is  not  this  the  negative  theology  of  the  Alexandrian 
Fathers,  so  well  described  by  Petau  and  Thomassin  ? 
Bossuet  finds  it  again  here  in  the  actual  life  of  the  soul. 
He  speaks  of  it  elsewhere,  like  Thomassin ;  like  him,  he  sees 
its  source  in  the  bottom  of  the  soul,  in  the  centre  of  the  soul, 
—  expressions  full  of  meaning,  which  superficial  psychology 
understands  not. 

But  what  follows  is  admirable  :  — 

"  What  power,  what  energy,  what  secret  virtue  does  that  soul 
feel  within  itself  to  correct  and  contradict  itself  and  to  dare  to 
reject  all  that  it  thinks !  " 


286  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

This  is  precisely  what  Thomassin  says  :  — 

"  There  is  a  secret  virtue,  a  secret  sense  (arcanus  sensus),  by 
which  the  soul  feels  God  when  it  has  not  yet  seen  him,  and  which 
shows  it  that  all  which  it  sees  is  not  he." 

Bossuet  adds,  — 

"  Who  does  not  see  that  there  is  within  it  a  hidden  spring  which 
does  not  yet  act  with  all  its  strength,  and  which,  although  it  be 
constrained,  although  it  has  not  yet  freedom  of  motion,  plainly 
shows,  by  a  certain  vigor,  that  it  is  not  wholly  bound  to  matter, 
and  that  it  is,  as  it  were,  attached  by  its  extreme  point  to  some  higher 
principle.  .  .  ." 

This  hidden  spring  of  which  Bossuet  speaks  is  an  intu- 
ition of  genius.  Whoever  does  not  know  this  hidden  spring, 
is  utterly  ignorant  of  the  human  soul.  The  soul  of  man  is 
evidently  bound  to  matter,  which  is  beneath  it  and  touches 
it ;  but  it  is  not  wholly  bound  to  it,  and  it  touches  something 
else  than  mere  matter,  —  it  touches  God.  who  is  higher  than 
it ;  it  is  joined  to  him  by  its  extreme  point,  or,  as  Plato  says, 
it  is  suspended  from  him  by  its  root ;  and  this  necessary  union 
with  God  gives  the  soul  a  secret  virtue  and  a  hidden  spring, 
by  means  of  which  it  rises  to  heights  beyond  itself,  towards 
the  infinite  and  eternal,  to  conceive  thereof,  Plato  also 
speaks  of  these  soarings  and  these  wings  of  the  soul. 

But  note  this.  This  hidden  spring  does  not  yet  act  with 
full  force ;  it  is  constrained,  it  has  riot  yet  freedom  of  mo- 
tion. And  moreover,  in  our  present  and  natural  state,  this 
spring  is  soon  relaxed,  and  the  soul  speedily  returns  to  its 
phantasms.  "  T  confess  it,"  adds  Bossuet,  "  we  do  not  long 
maintain  this  noble  ardor ;  these  fair  ideas  soon  become 
clouded,  and  the  soul  is  quickly  replunged  in  material 
things.  It  has  its  weaknesses,  its  languors,  and  —  let  me  say 
it,  for  I  know  not  how  to  express  myself  —  it  has  incom- 
prehensible grossnesses,  which,  if  it  ~be  not  otherwise  enlight- 
ened, almost  force  it  to  doubt  what  itself  is." 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    287 

These  words  complete  the  truth  on  this  point.  That  is  to 
say,  Bossuet  points  out  here  that  distinction  of  the  two  re- 
gions of  the  intelligible  world  which  all  minds  of  the  first 
order  have  perceived. 

In  the  lower,  which  is  still  sublime,  the  mind  does  not  see 
the  eternal,  the  infinite,  save  through  contrast  and  negation. 
"I  know  not  what  it  is,"  says  reason,  "but  it  is  not  that."  At 
the  sight  of  all  the  phantasms,  shadows  of  him  who  is,  the 
mind  says,  "It  is  not  he,"  —  which  it  could  not  do,  as 
Bossuet,  Thomassin,  and  the  others  understand,  if  it  did  not 
already  bear  within  it  the  celestial  radiance  at  the  bottom  of 
the  soul,  the  voice  at  the  centre,  the  hidden  spring,  the  sense 
of  the  infinite,  the  divine  sense,  which  alone  can  lead  it  to 
say,  "  That  is  not  he." 

But  this  degree  is  imperfect ;  we  see  nothing  in  it  save  by 
contrast,  negatively  and  indirectly.  We  feel  that  the  hid- 
den spring  is  constrained,  and  has  no  freedom  of  motion  ;  it 
falls  back  more  easily  than  it  darts  upward ;  and  the  soul  is 
quickly  replunged  in  material  things,  if  it  be  not  otherwise 
enlightened. 

The  soul  requires  the  other  light,  the  light  of  the  other 
region  of  the  intelligible  world,  the  direct  light,  no  longer 
seen  by  its  shadow,  but  by  itself.  Those  who  are  acquainted 
with  our  soul  are  well  aware  that  it  can  find  rest  only  in 
this  direct  vision. 

Let  no  one  say  that  all  these  expressions,  such  as  "  secret 
virtue,"  "  centre  of  the  soul,"  "  hidden  spring,"  "  bound  by  its 
extreme  point  to  some  higher  principle,"  are  only  images, 
without  philosophical  precision.  The  meaning  of  all  these 
terms  is  clear  enough,  precise  enough,  luminous  enough. 
All  this  means  that  God  and  the  soul  exist ;  that  the  soul, 
which  is  conscious  of  itself  and  of  the  material  bodies  under 
it,  is  also  conscious  of  God,  who  is  above  it,  and  that  the 
divine  sense  leads  it  to  know  God,  as  the  external  senses 
lead  us  to  know  bodies. 


288  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

In  the  first  place,  this  divine  sense,  which  in  our  present 
and  natural  state  is  far  from  having  all  its  strength,  all  its 
movements,  or  all  its  perceptions,  is  yet  sufficient  to  teach 
us  that  which  God  is  not,  and  to  inform  us  by  contrast,  in 
the  presence  of  limited  and  transitory  things,  that  he  is 
eternal  and  infinite.  But  this  conclusion,  though  absolutely 
sure,  is  abstract;  it  establishes  the  fact  that  God  is  'eternal 
and  infinite,  but  it  does  not  show  us  the  eternal,  infinite 
essence.  The  divine  sense  then  regrets  that  it  does  not  see 
this,  and  desires  to  see  him  whom  our  reason  knows  to  be 
eternal  and  infinite.  For  so  much  that  degree  of  light  and 
that  region  of  the  intelligible  world  serve,  wherein,  Plato 
says,  the  mind  sees  divine  phantasms,  the  shadows  of  God, 
but  not  God.  This  first  region  makes  us  desire  the  other, 
—  that  which  reveals  God  himself;  that  where  our  soul 
is  otherwise  enlightened,  as  Bossuet  says  ;  and  where,  in 
the  potent  and  vivifying  light,  ardor  is  sustained,  languor 
is  cured,  incomprehensible  grossnesses  are  overcome,  and  the 
soul  learns  no  longer  to  sink  itself  in  material  things. 


LEIBNITZ. 
I. 

"  The  soul  is  the  mirror  of  the  universe,"  said  Leibnitz ;  and 
perhaps  no  man  has  so  well  verified  the  profound  thought  as 
its  author  himself.  His  genius  is  indeed  a  sort  of  universal 
mirror,  in  which  everything  paints  itself  with  the  richest 
profusion. 

Only,  it  must  be  said  that  useless  things  were  sometimes 
mirrored  in  that  fair  glass,  and  that  its  surface  was  not 
without  flaw.  Various  irregularities  at  times  impair  the 
truth  of  its  images.  But  it  is  only  necessary  that  the  eye 
should  place  itself  in  front  of  those  singular  points  known 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.    289 

as  the  universal  mathematical  language  and  the  pre-estab- 
lished harmony,  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  the  finest,  greatest, 
most  brilliant  reflector  of  light  that  ever  existed. 

Leibnitz,  then,  could  not  fail  to  bear  within  him  the  great 
idea  on  which,  throughout  that  century,  the  human  mind 
brooded,  inspired  by  the  mind  of  God,  —  namely,  the  idea  of 
the  infinite,  the  relation  of  infinite  being  to  finite  beings,  and 
the  mode  of  transition  from  the  one  order  to  the  other.  Only, 
while  Bossuet,  helped  by  Fe'nelon,  saw  these  things  in  the 
living  relation  of  the  soul  to  God,  Leibnitz  saw  them  in 
geometry,  and  laid  down  the  laws  of  the  comparison  and 
the  passage  of  the  geometrical  finite  to  the  geometrical 
infinite. 

This  does  not  mean  that  Leibnitz  was  the  legislator  of  the 
idea  of  the  infinite  in  metaphysics,  —  far  from  it ;  this  idea 
bewilders  him  to  such  a  degree  that  he  sometimes  (almost 
incredible  to  relate)  asserts  the  actual  existence  of  the  infi- 
nite in  nature  and  in  matter ;  and  sometimes,  alarmed  by 
the  outcries  of  the  geometricians  of  that  day,  he  deserts,  as 
Fontenelle  blames  him  for  doing,  the  geometrical  infinite  it- 
self, thus  reversing  the  whole  truth,  —  saying  yes  where  he 
should  say  no,  and  vice  versa. 

And  yet  Leibnitz's  chief  title  to  glory  —  an  immortal 
title,  and  one  of  the  grandest  ever  won  by  the  mind  of  any 
man  —  is  the  fragmentary  chapter  of  a  work  which  he  medi- 
tated, and  which  he  called  de  Scientia  infiniti.  This  chapter 
contains  the  discovery  of  the  infinitesimal  calculus,  —  the 
most  potent  lever  ever  given  to  human  thought  with  which 
to  uplift  the  world ;  a  discovery  whence  proceed  the  mar- 
vels of  our  physical  sciences,  and  whence  other  marvels 
will  yet  proceed.  Newton  also  discovered  this  lever,  but 
he  gave  it  to  us  in  an  involved  form  which  was  both  less 
scientific  and  less  practical.  Leibnitz  presents  it  to  us  in 
.its  true  form,  in  its  inmost  nature,  which  is  the  cornpar- 

19 


290  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

ison,  the  relation,  the  rational  passage,  of  the  finite  to  the 
infinite. 

Let  us  say  at  once  that  this  process  is  merely  a  particular 
case  and  a  special  application,  to  the  geometrical  infinite 
and  finite,  of  the  universal  process  of  reason  in  its  passage 
from  the  contingent  to  the  necessary,  from  the  particular  to 
the  universal,  from  the  world  to  God,  and  from  the  finite  to 
the  infinite.  This  will  be  more  fully  developed  in  the 
course  of  the  present  work. 

II. 

Did  Leibnitz  understand  all  the  metaphysical  significance 
of  his  discovery  ?  Did  he  see  its  relation  to  the  proof  of  the 
existence  of  God  ?  Did  he  see  its  relation  to  the  theological 
question  of  the  love  of  God,  the  true  and  false  mysticism, 
argued  between  Bossuet  and  Fe'nelon  ?  We  think  he  did. 
He  says  in  his  New  Essays : l  — 

"  This  is  not  the  place  to  suggest  the  true  means  of  extending  the 
art  of  demonstration  beyond  its  ancient  limits,  which  have  hitherto 
been  essentially  the  same  as  those  of  the  region  of  mathematics. 
I  hope,  if  God  gives  me  the  requisite  time,  to  show  some  attempt  at 
this,  by  making  effective  use  of  these  means,  without  confining  myself 
to  precepts" 

Elsewhere,  in  a  letter  to  Wagner,  on  logic,  he  writes :  — 

"By  logic,  I  understand  the  art  of  using  one's  reason,  and  not 
only  of  judging  that  which  is  established,  but  also  of  finding  out 
that  which  is  hidden.  .  .  .  But  I  must  confess  that  all  systems  of 
logic  known  up  to  the  present  day  are  barely  the  shadow  of  that 
which  I  desire,  and  which  I  see  afar  off.  ...  I  hold  it  as  certain 
that  it  is  possible  to  carry  this  art  of  using  reason  incomparably 
higher,  —  I  seem  to  see  it,  I  have  a  foretaste  of  it;  but  had  it  not 
been  for  mathematics,  I  should  have  found  it  very  hard  to  reach  it. 
I  discovered  some  principles  upon  this  subject  while  still  a  novice 

1  New  Essays,  book  iv.  ch.  iii.  §  19. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    291 

in  mathematics,  and,  towards  my  twentieth  year,  printed  some- 
what concerning  it ;  but  now  I  see  how  obstructed  the  road  is, 
and  how  hard  it  would  have  been  for  me  to  force  a  passage,  with- 
out the  help  of  the  deepest  part  of  mathematics."  l 

All  this  applies  very  well  to  the  infinitesimal  calculus, 
which  extends  the  art  of  demonstration  far  beyond  its  ancient 
limits ;  which  is  not  confined  to  rules,  but  makes  effective 
use  of  itself  in  mathematics  first,  then  in  metaphysics,  to  which 
it  is  also  applied,  as  has  never  been  sufficiently  noted.  And 
it  certainly  appears  as  if  it  were  to  the  infinitesimal  analysis 
that  Leibnitz  alludes  here,  for,  three  pages  later,2  it  seems  to 
him  that  scientific  knowledge  will  be  carried  much  farther 
than  in  the  past ;  "  that  considerable  progress  will  be  made 
in  time ;  that  we  only  lack  the  art  of  using  our  materials, 
small  beginnings  of  which  I  do  not  despair  of  seeing,  since 
infinitesimal  analysis  has  given  us  the  means  of  allying 
geometry  and  physics."  And  if  he  here  appears  to  speak  only 
of  physical  sciences,  we  must  observe  that  shortly  before  he 
remarks  "  that  logic  can  demonstrate  as  well  as  geometry, 
and  that  the  logic  of  geometricians  is  an  extension  or  partic- 
ular promotion  of  general  logic."3  If,  therefore,  Leibnitz 
understands,  as  we  see,  that  the  logic  of  geometricians  is  only 
a  particular  extension  of  general  logic,  if  he  knows  that  the 
art  of  demonstration  in  general  has  ordinarily  had  the  same 
limits  as  those  of  the  mathematical  region,  if  he  can  see  that 
the  infinitesimal  analysis  has  vastly  extended  the  limits  of 
that  region,  how  could  he  fail  to  conclude  that  this  fresh  ex- 
tension of  the  logic  of  geometricians  extends  the  power  of 
general  logic  in  the  same  proportion  ?  And  how  can  these 
fail  to  be  the  true  means  of  extending  the  art  of  demonstra- 
tion, which  he  claimed  to  possess,  and  effective  proof  of 
which  he  promised  to  give  some  day  ? 

1  Opera  Philosophies,  Erdraann's  edition,  p.  419. 

2  New  Essays,  book  iv.  chap.  iii.  §  24.  3  Ibid.,  chap.  ii.  §  9. 


292  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

But  let  us  not  anticipate.  The  subject  before  us  now 
is  the  proof  of  God's  existence  as  given  in  the  Theodicy  of 
Leibnitz. 

III. 

In  his  Theodicy,  Leibnitz,  with  that  superabundant  intel- 
lectual variety  which  characterizes  his  genius,  accepts  all  the 
demonstrations  of  the  existence  of  God.  However,  he  re- 
touches th'em  all,  not  finding  any  of  them  completely  enough 
developed.  "  I  hold,"  said  he,  that  "  the  possibility  and  the 
existence  of  God  are  demonstrated  in  more  than  one  way.  I 
believe  that  nearly  all  the  methods  used  to  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  God  are  good,  and  would  be  of  service,  if  perfected." 

Leibnitz,  therefore,  accepts,  with  Aristotle,  the  proof  of 
God's  existence  derived  from  the  fact  of  motion ;  and  he 
works  it  over  again,  hoping  that  it  is  then  raised  to  mathe- 
matical precision.  In  the  title  of  his  curious  dissertation  on 
the  combinatory  art,  we  find  these  words :  Demonstration  of 
the  existence  of  God,  brought  to  mathematical  precision.1 
This  demonstration  starts  from  the  fact  of  motion  (aliquod 
corpus  movetur),  and  claims  to  deduce  from  that  fact,  with 
rigorous  exactness,  the  existence  of  an  incorporeal  substance 
of  infinite  virtue. 

Elsewhere, 2  Leibnitz  sees  a  demonstration  of  the  existence 
of  God  in  Aristotle's  assertion  "  That  there  is  in  us  an  agent 
superior  to  our  reason,  and  which  is  God."  He  only  fears 
that  Aristotle  by  this  understood  that  universal  active -intel- 
lect which  would  be  one  and  the  same  in  all  men,  and  would 
alone  survive  at  death.  But  he  sees,  at  any  rate,  in  this 
assertion  a  testimony  to  the  universal  light  which  enlightens 
all  men,  which  speaks  to  us  when  we  have  the  certainty  of 
some  immutable  truth,  and  which  is  God. 

1  Works  of  Leibnitz,  Dutens'  edition,  vol.  ii.  p.  239. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  264. 


THEODICY  OF   THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.   293 

He  also  accepts  as  good,  Saint  Anselm's  proof,  reproduced 
by  Descartes,  deduced  a  priori  from  the  idea  of  necessary 
being.  He  considers  it  "  very  beautiful  and  very  ingenious," 
but  he  sees  in  it  "  a  void  to  be  filled."  "  I  hold  the  mid- 
dle ground,"  1  he  says,  "  between  those  who  take  this  reason- 
ing for  a  sophism,  and  the  opinion  of  Father  Lamy,  who 
takes  it  for  a  complete  demonstration." 

"Saint  Anselm,"  he  says  elsewhere,2  "congratulates  himself, 
and  not  unjustly,  upon  having  found  a  way  to  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  God  a  priori,  from  his  own  idea,  without  recourse  to  his 
effects.  And  this  is  closely  the  form  of  his  argument :  God  is 
the  greatest,  or,  as  Descartes  puts  it,  the  most  perfect  of  beings ; 
or  rather  he  is  a  being  of  a  supreme  grandeur  and  perfection 
which  contains  all  the  degrees.  This  is  the  idea  of  God.  Now, 
see  how  existence  follows  from  this  notion.  It  is  something 
more  to  exist  than  not  to  exist,  or  rather  existence  adds  a  de- 
gree to  grandeur  or  perfection,  and,  as  Descartes  declares,  ex- 
istence is  itself  a  perfection.  Therefore  that  degree  of  grandeur 
and  perfection,  or  rather  that  perfection  which  consists  of  exist- 
ence, exists  in  that  supreme,  all-great,  all-perfect  Being;  for 
otherwise  he  would  lack  some  degree,  contrary  to  his  definition ; 
and  consequently  that  Supreme  Being  exists.  The  Scholastics, 
not  excepting  their  angelic  doctor,  scorned  this  argument,  and 
have  passed  it  off  as  a  paralogism,  —  in  which  they  were  very 
wrong,  and  Descartes  was  quite  right  to  restore  it.  It  is  not  a 
paralogism,  but  it  is  an  imperfect  demonstration,  which  sup- 
poses something  which  should  also  have  been  proved  to  make 
it  mathematically  evident, — that  is,  it  is  tacitly  supposed  that 
this  idea  of  the  all-great  or  all-perfect  Being  is  possible,  and 
does  not  imply  a  contradiction.  And  it  is  something  gained 
that  by  this  remark  we  prove  that  supposing  God  were  possible, 
he  exists,  which  is  the  privilege  of  the  only  divinity.  But  it  is 
to  be  desired  that  skilful  persons  might  finish  the  demonstra- 
tion with  the  exactness  of  mathematical  evidence,  and  I  believe 
I  have  said  somewhat  elsewhere  which  may  aid  in  the  task." 

1  Leibnitz's  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  254. 

2  New  Essays,  book  iv.  chap.  ix.  §  7. 


294  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

These  improvements  on  Saint  Anselm's  proof  are  indicated 
by  Leibnitz  in  an  answer  to  the  "  Journal  des  Savants." l    He 


"  In  the  first  place,  God  should  not  be  defined  as  the  Supreme 
Being,  or  the  Perfect  Being,  but  as  Being  in  itself  (Ens  a  se). 
Hence,  if  such  a  being  be  possible,  he  exists.  Those  who  would 
deny  this  proposition  would  deny  the  possibility  of  being  in  itself. 
But  note  well  that  this  very  expedient  serves  to  show  that  they 
are  wrong,  and  fills  the  void  in  the  demonstration.  For  if  being  in 
itself  be  impossible,  all  beings  through  another  are  so  also ;  since 
after  all  they  only  exist  through  the  being  in  itself:  thus  nothing 
could  exist.  This  reasoning  leads  us  to  another  modal  proposition, 
equivalent  to  the  preceding  one  (if  necessary  being  be  possible,  it 
exists),  and  which,  combined  with  it,  completes  the  proof.  We 
might  state  it  thus  :  If  necessary  being  does  not  exist,  there  is  no  being 
possible.  It  seems  as  if  this  demonstration  had  never  before  been 
carried  so  far;  and  yet  I  have  also  labored  elsewhere  to  prove  that 
the  perfect  being  is  possible." 

We  shall  touch  on  this  other  work  of  Leibnitz  later.  But 
let  us  first  note  that  he  recurs  here  to  precisely  the  true  point 
of  support  for  proving  the  existence  of  God ;  he  again  and 
inevitably  bases  what  is  called  the  rational  proof  a  priori, 
upon  the  ground  of  experience.  For  if,  to  finish  the  demon- 
stration and  to  fill  up  the  void,  we  must  say  that  if  the  neces- 
sary being  does  not  exist,  no  being  is  possible,  that  means  that 
the  necessary  being  exists,  because  there  are  possible  beings 
who  actually  exist  under  our  eyes.  This  again  helps  to  es- 
tablish what  we  have  called  Descartes'  second  proof,  the 
proof  of  God  from  his  idea  taken  in  itself,  upon  the  first,  the 
proof  of  God  from  his  effects.  Moreover,  is  not  the  idea  it- 
self, as  all  philosophers  observe,  the  first  and  chief  effect  of 
God  in  us  ?  And  this  is  the  place  to  observe  that  what  is 
usually  called  Saint  Anselm's  argument  is  only,  as  we  have 

1  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  254. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    295 

seen,  Saint  Anselm's  argument  cut  in  halves.  Men  forget 
that  if,  in  the  Proslogium,  he  deduces  from  the  notion  of  God 
his  existence,  he,  in  the  Monologium,  by  induction  gains  the 
notion  of  God  from  the  sight  of  created  beings. 

Moreover,  those  are  mistaken l  who  suppose  that  Leibnitz 
claimed  to  put  Saint  Anselm's  argument  and  the  entire  proof 
of  God's  existence  into  a  single  formal  syllogism.  By  this 
syllogism  Leibnitz  plainly  intends  to  prove  but  one  of  the 
two  modal  propositions  which  should,  he  says,  be  added  to 
Saint  Anselm's  argument  to  fill  the  void  in  it. 

Here  is  the  syllogism :  — 

"  The  being  whose  essence  implies  existence,  exists  if  he  be  pos- 
sible, that  is  to  say,  if  he  have  an  essence  (this  is  an  identical 
axiom,  which  needs  no  proof). 

"  Now,  God  is  the  Being  whose  essence  implies  existence  (this 
is  the  definition). 

"  Therefore  God,  if  he  be  possible,  exists  (necessary  conclusion)."2 

Clearly  this  is  not  a  demonstration  of  God's  existence,  since 
the  conclusion  itself  is  not  this,  God  exists,  but  this  other, 
God,  if  he  be  possible,  exists. 

To  this  proposition,  God  exists,  if  he  be  possible,  which  in 
fact  rigorously  proves  that  syllogism,  must  be  added,  as  Leib- 
nitz says,  the  other  proposition,  If  necessary  being  do  not 
exist,  no  being  is  possible.  These  two  together,  as  Leibnitz 
asserts,  fill  the  void  in  the  isolated  ontological  argument,  and 
complete  the  demonstration. 

Thus  Leibnitz,  far  from  compromising  by  this  alteration 
what  he  believed  to  be  Saint  Anselm's  proof,  as  is  commonly 
supposed,  far  from  exaggerating  its  abstract  character,  has, 
on  the  contrary,  placed  it  on  its  true  basis,  by  introducing 

1  Cousin,  in  his  sixth  lesson  on  Kant,  p.  238,  and  Saisset,  in  his  "Manual 
of  Philosophy,"  p.  242,.  both  fall  into  this  error. 

2  Dutens,  vol.  v.  p.  361. 


296  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

into  it  a  concrete  element,  and  resting  it  on  the  solid  founda- 
tion of  reality.1 

IV. 

We  now  come  to  the  work  undertaken  by  Leibnitz  to  prove 
that  perfect  being  is  possible.  We  find  in  the  summary  of 
his  doctrine  written  out  for  Prince  Eugene,2  from  §  36  to 
§45,- 

36.  "  But  there  must  also  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  contingent 
truths  of  fact ;  that  is,  for  the  series  of  things  diffused  through  the 
world  of  creatures,  where  the  resolution  into  particular  reasons 
might  run  into  unlimited  detail,  on  account  of  the  immense  variety 
of  natural  objects  and  the  infinite  division  of  bodies.     There  is  an 
infinity  of  figures  and  of  movements,  present  and  past,  which  enter 
into  the  efficient  cause  of  my  present  writing,  and  there  is  an  in- 
finity of  little  inclinations  and  dispositions  of  my  soul,  past  and 
present,  which  enter  into  the  final  cause. 

37.  "  And  as  all  this  detail  only  involves  other  anterior  or  more 
detailed  contingencies,  each  of  which  again  requires  a  similar  analy- 
sis in  order  to  account  for  it,  we  make  no  advance,  and  the  suffi- 
cient or  final  reason  must  be  outside  of  the  sequence  or  series  of 
the  detail  of  contingencies,  however  infinite  it  may  be. 

38.  "And  thus  it  is  that  the  final  reason  of  things  must  be 
found  in  a  necessary  substance,  in  which   the  detail  of  changes 
exists  eminently  only,  as  in  its  source,  and  this  is  what  we  call 
God. 

39.  "Now,  this  substance  being  a  sufficient  reason  of  all  this 
detail,  which  is  everywhere  connected,  there  is  but  one  God,  and 
this  God  suffices. 

40.  "We  may  also  judge  that  this  supreme  substance,  which  is 
unique,  universal,  and  necessary,  having  nothing  outside  of  itself 
which  is  independent  of  it,  and  being  the  simple  continuity  of  pos- 

1  Leibnitz  has  so  little  idea  of  giving  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  here, 
that,  on  the  contrary,  he  asserts,  in  this  very  same  place,  that  there  is  another 
part  of  the  question  to  be  demonstrated,  —  namely,  the  possibility  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God.     See  the  Letter  to  Bierling,  vol.  v.  p.  361. 

2  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  25,  from  §  36  to  §  45  inclusive. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    297 

sible  being,  must  be  incapable  of  limitations,  and  contain  all  of 
reality  that  is  possible. 

41.  "Whence  it  follows  that  God  is  absolutely  perfect;  perfec- 
tion being  nothing  else  than  the  greatest  of  positive  reality  taken 
exactly,  setting  aside  the  limitations  or  bounds  in  that,  which  is 
limited.     And  there  where  there  are  no  bounds,  that  is,  in  God, 
perfection  is  absolutely  infinite." 

42.  "  It  also  follows  that  creatures  have  their  perfections  from 
the  influence  of  God ;  but  they  have  their  imperfections  from  their 
own  nature,  incapable  of  existing  without  limits,  for  it  is  by  this 
that  they  are  distinguished  from  God." 

43.  "It  is  also  true  that  in  God  is  the  source,  not  only  of  ex- 
istences, but  also  of  essences,  so  far  as  they  are  real,  or  of  that 
which  is  real  in  the  possible  ;  this  is  because  the  understanding 
of  God  is  the  region  of  eternal  truths,  or  of  the  ideas  on  which 
they  depend,  and  because  without  him  there  would  be   nothing 
real  in  the  possibilities,  and  not  only  nothing  existing,  but  also 
nothing  possible." 

44.  "  And  yet  if  there  be  a  reality  in  the  essences  or  possibili- 
ties, or,  indeed,  in  the  eternal  truths,  that  reality  must  be  based 
upon  something  existing  and  actual,  and  consequently  in  the  exist- 
ence of  the  necessary  being,  in  whom  the  essence  includes  existence, 
or  with  whom  it  is  enough  to  be  possible  in  order  to  be  actual." 

45.  "  Thus  God  alone  —  or  the  necessary  being  —  has  this  priv- 
ilege, that  he  must  exist  if  he  be  possible.     And  as  nothing  can 
prevent  the  possibility  of  that  which  includes  no  bound,  no  nega- 
tion, and  consequently  no  contradiction,  this  also  suffices  to  estab- 
lish the  existence  of  God  a  priori.     We  have  also  proved  it  by 
the  reality  of  the  eternal  truths.     But  we  have  just  proved  it  a 
posteriori,  since  contingent  beings  exist,  which  can  only  have  their 
final  or  sufficient  reason  in  a  necessary  being  who  has  the  reason 
of  his  existence  in  himself." 

In  these  statements  Leibnitz  therefore  claims,  as  he  says, 
to  include  three  proofs  of  God's  existence,  —  1,  the  proof 
a  posteriori,  by  the  existence  of  contingent  beings  (§§  36- 
41) ;  2,  the  proof  from  the  reality  of  eternal  truths  (§§  43, 
44);  3,  the  proof  a  priorit  based  on  the  fact  that  God  is 


298  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

possible,  and  that  he  exists  if  he  is  possible  (§  45).  The 
first  is  Descartes'  first  proof,  God  known  by  his  acts;  and 
the  other  two  belong  to  Descartes'  second  proof,  God  known 
by  his  idea.  And  this  second,  we  see  clearly  here,  contin- 
ually rests  upon  the  first. 

Leibnitz  first  asserts,  in  this  remarkable  summary,  that  it 
is  useless  to  analyze  contingents,  —  "  we  make  no  advance ; 
and  the  sufficient  or  final  reason  must  be  outside  of  the 
serial  detail  of  contingencies."  This  is  the  substance  of 
any  demonstration  of  God's  existence,  —  which,  at  bottom, 
may  be  reduced  to  this  simple  argument :  There  are  finite 
beings,  therefore  there  is  an  infinite  being ;  in  other  words, 
there  is  something,  therefore  God  exists,  —  a  train  of  reason- 
ing which  is  in  no  way  a  syllogism,  but  which  is  the  work 
of  the  other  process  of  reason;  that  which,  far  from  ad- 
vancing, like  the  first,  from  identity  to  identity,  advances 
from  finite  to  infinite,  and  that  without  intermediary,  since 
there  is  none. 

And  it  seems  to  me  that  here  Leibnitz  had  an  intuition 
of  the  identity  of  the  metaphysical  process,  which  finds 
necessary  immutable  being  at  the  root  of  contingents,  and 
of  his  infinitesimal  analysis,  which  finds  at  the  bottom  of 
the  variable  increments  of  a  geometrical  postulate  the  fixed, 
absolute,  infinitesimal  element  that  corresponds  to  it,  and 
that  is  its  source,  although  it  may  be  infinitely  distinct  from 
it.  Does  he  not  immediately  add  that  "  the  final  reason  of 
things  must  exist  in  a  necessary  substance,  in  which  the 
detail  of  changes  exists  eminently  only,  as  in  its  source  "  ? 
I  ask  all  geometricians,  is  it  possible  to  give  a  better  defini- 
tion of  the  infinitesimal  geometrical  element,  compared  to 
the  variable  increments  of  finite  greatness  which  correspond 
to  it,  than  to  call  it  the  necessary  element,  in  which  the 
detail  of  changes  exists  eminently  only,  as  in  its  source  ? 

However  this  may  be,  we  again  encounter  here,  and  with 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    299 

much  precision,  all  the  details  of  the  process  which,  at  a 
single  stroke,  demonstrates  God  and  shows  us  his  attributes, 
—  to  destroy  limitations,  remove  bounds,  assert  all  positive 
perfection,  "by  setting  aside  limits  and  bounds,  in  order  to 
obtain  absolute,  infinite  perfection,  and  the  reality  of  all 
potentiality,  as  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  says  (Deus  est  actu- 
alitas  totius  possibilitatis). 

The  famous  editor  of  Leibnitz  very  aptly  remarks,  like 
ourselves,  that  we  have  here  an  exact  process,  which  has  its 
name  and  its. laws;  he  calls  it  via  eminentice  vel  perfectionis, 
and  describes  it  as  follows,1  in  a  precise  and  perfect  way : 

"  This  process,  which  rises  to  the  attributes  of  God,  is  called  the 
process  of  eminence,  or  perfection.  It  consists  in  removing  the 
limitations  of  the  perfections  seen  in  finite  beings,  and  then  attrib- 
uting them  to  God,  —  thus  advancing  in  thought  from  the  finite 
perfections  of  created  beings  to  the  infinite  perfections  of  God. 
Only,  we  must  be  careful  to  grasp  in  our  attributes  that  which  is 
actually  there  and  is  properly  real ;  otherwise  we  might  attribute 
imperfections  to  God.  This  process  is  distinct  from  the  other, 
called  that  of  causality,  which  considers  the  effects  of  God's  attri- 
butes, and  rises  from  these  effects  to  their  cause." 

At  bottom,  these  two  processes,  logically  distinct,  come  to 
the  same  thing,  since  every  finite  perfection  of  created  beings 
is  at  the  same  time  the  finite  image  and  the  finite  effect  of 
the  infinite  perfections  of  God. 

Leibnitz  develops  his  thought  still  farther  in  the  same 
place,  in  these  beautiful  words :  — 

"  To  love  God,  we  need  only  behold  his  perfections,  —  which  is 
easy,  because  we  find  their  ideas  within  us.  The  perfections  of  God 
are  those  of  our  souls,  but  he  possesses  them  without  bounds ;  he  is 
an  ocean  of  which  we  have  received  but  a  few  drops ;  there  -is 
within  us  some  power,  some  knowledge,  some  goodness,  but  they  are 
all  entire  in  God.  Order,  proportion,  harmony,  enchant  us, — paint- 

1  See  Bilfingeri  Dilucid.  Philosoph.,  sect.  v.  cap.  iii.  §  418.  Dutens, 
Works  of  Leibnitz,  vol.  i.  p.  38. 


300  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

ing  and  music  are  specimens.  God  is  all  order,  he  always  observes 
precise  proportion,  he  makes  universal  harmony  ;  all  beauty  is  an 
effusion  of  his  radiance." 

Elsewhere, l  — 

"  We  are  instantly  aware  of  substance  and  of  spirit  by  becom- 
ing aware  of  ourselves,  and  that  the  idea  of  God  exists  in  ours 
by  the  suppression  of  the  limits  of  our  perfections,  as  extension, 
taken  absolutely,  is  included  in  the  idea  of  a  globe." 

Elsewhere,  2  — 

"  When  we  think  of  ourselves,  we  think  of  being,  of  substance, 
simple  and  composite,  of  the  immaterial  and  of  God  himself, 
conceiving  that  what  with  us  is  limited  exists  in  him  without 
limit." 

We  see  that  among  the  seventeenth-century  philosophers, 
Leibnitz  stated  mathematically  the  process  by  which  our 
mind  rises  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  from  limited  beings 
to  God;  he  applied  it  to  geometry.  Not  Leibnitz,  but 
Fdnelon,  gained  the  clearest  and  most  complete  idea  of  the 
infinite.  But  Leibnitz  gave  its  final  precision  to  the  process 
which  knows  the  infinite. 

V. 

As  to  formal  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God,  Leibnitz, 
truly,  sometimes  seems  to  offer  them  too  exclusively  as  a 
work  of  pure  reason,  isolated  from  all  experience,  and  he 
thus  exposes  them  to  the  criticism  of  Kant.  And  yet,  if 
we  penetrate  to  the  root  of  his  thought,  and  reunite  the 
various  points  of  view  upon  this  subject,  scattered  through- 
out his  writings,  we  see  plainly  that  he  knows  the  experi- 
mental side  of  the  proof,  its  moral  condition,  and  the 
existence  of  that  divine  sense,  without  which  it  could 
never  be  effected  in  the  mind. 

1  Theodicy,  §  4.  2  Monadology,  §  30,  p.  395. 


THEODICY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    301 

What  is  his  grand  and  beautiful  theory  of  innate  ideas, 
what  his  constant  allusions  to  confined  knowledge  and  indis- 
tinct thought  ?  "  What  are  these  ideas  which  exist  in  us, 
not  always  so  that  we  perceive  them,  but  always  so  that  we 
may  draw  them  from  our  own  store  and  make  them  percep- 
tible ? " :  Is  it  not  precisely  the  same  to  have  an  innate 
idea  of  God,  as  to  have  what  we  can  and  should  call  the 
divine  sense? 

"  There  are,"  he  says  elsewhere,2  "  innate  truths  which  we 
find  within  us  in  two  ways,  —  by  light  and  by  instinct.  .  .  . 
There  are  in  us  instinctive  truths  which  are  innate  princi- 
ples, which  we  feel,  and  which  we  approve  in  spite  of  every- 
thing. We  have  no  proof  of  them,  although  we  acquire  it 
when  we  yield  to  that  instinct."  This  could  not  be  better  ex- 
pressed ;  those  principles  which  we  approve  without  having 
a  proof  of  them,  recall  Pascal's  words :  '"  The  heart  has  its 
reasons,  which  reason  does  not  know."  Only  Leibnitz  adds 
to  this  that  reason  may  become  acquainted  with  them  later. 
Leibnitz  sees  perfectly  that  the  instinct  which  urges  us  to 
happiness,  which  is  only  the  attraction  of  the  supreme  Good, 
or  the  divine  sense,  is  an  innate  principle,  which  we  do  not 
know  in  a  luminous  manner ;  that,  however,  this  principle 
established,  we  may  derive  from  it  scientific  consequences,3 
then  founded  on  internal  experience,  or  on  confused 
knowledges* 

Leibnitz,  like  all  philosophers,  distinguishes  between  "  cor- 
rect and  genuine  reason,  and  a  pretended  reason  corrupted 
and  abused  by  false  appearances." 

He  knows,  and  calls  attention  to,  that  violation,  or  rather 
that  reversal,  of  the  true  powers  of  reason,  which  denies  to 
reason  the  power  of  giving  any  idea  or  definition  of  the  attri- 
butes of  God.5  He  knows  that  abuse  of  the  grand  process  oi 

1  New  Essays,  book  iv.  chap.  x.  §  7.  8  Ibid.,  §  1  and  2. 

2  Ibid.,  book  i.  chap.  ii.  §  3.  4  Ibid. 

6  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  66:  Disc,  on  the  Conform,  of  Reason  and  Faith,  No.  4. 


302  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

reason  which,  instead  of  annihilating  all  limits  in  the  sight 
of  finite  creatures,  annihilates  beings  themselves  and  their 
limited  attributes,  and  is  thus  raised,  not  to  being,  but  to 
nothing.  He  sees  the  affinity  between  this  strange  dialectic, 
the  pantheism  of  Spinoza,  and  the  errors  of  quietists  and 
false  mystics.1  He  sees  that  the  "  deification  of  the  mystics  " 
leads  to  Spinoza's  doctrine,  and  starts  from  the  false  dialectic 
which  destroys  the  positive  and  not  the  negative.  "The 
destruction  of  that  which  peculiarly  belongs  to  us,"  he  says, 2 
"  carried  so  far  by  the  quietists,  may  also  be  disguised  im- 
piety." He  compares  this  quietism  with  the  quietism  of 
Foe,  "  who,  feeling  death  close  at  hand,  declared  to  his  dis- 
ciples that  he  had  hidden  the  truth  from  them  under  the 
veil  of  metaphors,  and  that  all  might  lie  reduced  to  nothing, 
which  he  considered  the  primary  principle  of  all  things" 

It  thus  plainly  appears  that  Leibnitz  saw  more  or  less 
distinctly  the  affinity  which  exists  between  these  questions : 
the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  discussions  of  Quietism,  the 
idea  of  the  geometrical  finite  and  infinite,  and  the  advance 
of  the  healthy  reason,  which,  moreover,  he  by  no  means 
separated  from  the  heart,  instinct,  feeling,  and  morality. 

It  even  appears  that  his  philosophical  motive,  like  that  of 
all  true  philosophers,  is  moral,  and  that  historically  his  mind 
advanced  from  the  search  for  justice  to  the  search  for  truth. 
"  I  had,"  he  says,  "  a  greater  leaning  towards  ethics  .  .  . 
than  familiarity  with  speculative  philosophers ;  but  I  have 
learned  more  and  more  how  much  ethics  are  strengthened 
by  the  solid  principles  of  true  philosophy ;  therefore  I  have 
studied  them  ever  since  with  more  application,  and  have 
entered  upon  rather  novel  meditations.  ..." 

We  cannot  better  close  this  article  than  by  a  quotation 
from  the  introduction  to  the  New  Essays.  He  says :  — 

1  Disc,  on  the  Conform,  of  Eeason  and  Faith,  p.  71,  No.  9. 

2  Ibid.,  No.  10. 


THEODICY   OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY.    303 

"  Since  then  I  seem  to  see  a  new  aspect  of  the  interior  of 
things.  This  system  seems  to  unite  Plato  and  Democritus,  Aris- 
totle and  Descartes,  the  Scholastics  with  the  moderns,  theology  and 
morals  with  reason.  It  seems  to  take  the  best  from  every  side,  and 
then  afterwards  to  go  farther  than  any  one  has  yet  gone.  ...  I  find 
in  it  an  amazing  uniformity  and  simplicity,  so  that  it  may  be  said 
that  it  is  everywhere  and  always  the  same  thing,  nearly  in  the 
degrees  of  perfection.  I  see  now  what  Plato  meant  when  he  took 
matter  for  an  imperfect  and  transitory  entity ;  what  Aristotle  meant 
by  his  Entelechy;  what  the  promise  is  that  even  Democritus, 
like  Pliny,  made  of  another  life ;  just  how  far  the  sceptics  were 
right  in  inveighing  against  the  senses ;  how  animals  are  automata, 
according  to  Descartes,  and  yet  how  they  have  souls  and  feeling, 
according  to  the  opinion  of  the  human  race ;  how  we  should  ex- 
plain rationally  those  who  lodged  life  and  perception  in  all  things ; 
.  .  .  how  the  laws  of  nature  (a  good  part  of  which  were  un- 
known before  this  system)  originate  in  principles  superior  to  mat- 
ter, although,  nevertheless,  everything  takes  place  mechanically 
in  matter.  ..." 

This  system  is  the  system  of  universal  harmony,  the  abuse 
of  which  led  to  the  singular  idea  of  pre-established  harmony, 
but  the  truth  of  which  is  expressed  in  these  profound  words  : 
"  We  must  know  that  harmony,  metaphysics,  ethics,  and 
geometry  exist  everywhere."  We  have  just  seen  that  the- 
ology also  exists  everywhere,  according  to  Leibnitz.  So  in 
matter,  in  mind,  finite  beings,  in  God,  infinite  Being,  it  is  the 
same  thing,  nearly  to  the  degrees  of  perfection,  —  infinite  per- 
fection in  God,  and  finite  in  his  creatures ;  but  by  virtue  of 
the  universal  harmony  we  can  read  in  the  lower  order  the 
truths  of  the  higher  order,  —  we  can  read  God  in  nature,  as 
Saint  Paul  said,  and  as  the  human  race  has  ever  done. 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

ON   THE   ATTRIBUTES   OF   GOD. 

HERE  we  close  the  study  of  the  theodicies  of  the  philoso- 
phers of  the  first  order  We  have  seen  that  all  prove  the 
existence  of  God  in  the  same  way.  All  allude  to  the  moral 
obstacle  which  hides  the  light  from  the  soul,  and  which  must 
first  be  removed  ;  all  speak  of  that  inward  and  divine  sense, 
that  charm  of  the  desirable  and  the  intelligible,  which,  when 
the  obstacle  is  removed,  becomes  the  mainspring  of  reason  ; 
all  find  the  fulcrum  of  this  impulse  of  reason  in  the  spec- 
tacle of  created  things,  the  world  or  the  soul;  all  under- 
stand that  this  starting-point  is  in  no  sense  a  principle  from 
which  reason  can  deduce  God,  but  merely  a  starting-point 
from  which  reason  rises  to  the  principle  of  all  things,  which 
contains  no  point  of  departure ;  all  understand  or  dimly  per- 
ceive that  this  process  differs  wholly  from  syllogism,  and  that 
it  is  one  of  the  two  essential  processes  of  reason,  that  which 
finds  the  majors,  and  not  that  which  draws  the  consequences ; 
all  describe  this  process  as  an  act  of  reason,  which,  beholding 
finite  being,  the  world  or  the  soul,  sees,  through  contrast  and 
regret,  even  more  than  through  resemblance,  the  necessary 
existence  of  the  infinite  in  this  finite,  and  knows  the  infinite 
through  negation  in  denying  the  limits  of  all  finite  being  and 
all  bounded  perfection. 

It  is  clear  that,  as  Descartes  says,  this  process  gives  us  at 
once  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  and  the  knowledge  of 
his  attributes.  For  God  cannot  be  proved  save  in  so  far  as 
he  is  proved  as  gifted  with  his  essential  attributes,  without 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF  GOD.  305 

which  we  should  have  proved  the  existence  of  something  else, 
but  not  of  God. 

We  need  not,  therefore,  in  this  Theodicy,  undertake  to 
write  a  special  treatise  on  the  attributes  of  God.  The  de- 
monstration of  the  existence  of  God  .gives  us  all  at  the 
same  time. 

And  yet,  before  we  close  this  study  and  finish  the  proof 
of  the  existence  of  God,  —  a  proof  in  regard  to  which  two 
weighty  considerations  remain  to  be  stated,  —  we  must  first 
show  that  reason  may  throw  light  upon  and  develop  the 
idea  of  God,  and  know  his  attributes,  in  two  ways.  It  may 
either  acquire  them  all,  starting  from  the  spectacle  of  created 
beings,  by  this  principle :  "  The  perfections  of  God  are  those 
of  his  creatures,  without  their  limitations ; "  or  else,  a  single 
one  of  God's  attributes  being  given,  it  may  deduce  all  the 
others  from  this  by  means  of  identity.  We  have  hitherto 
constantly  referred  to  the  former  of  these  two  methods ;  we 
must  now  briefly  take  up  the  second. 

When  Plato  describes  the  dialectic  process  which,  from 
the  sight  of  things,  rises  to  grasp  the  principle  above  all 
things,  he  adds  that  once  in  possession  of  the  principle, 
reason  possesses  all  that  touches  that  principle,  and  may  ad- 
vance from  consequence  to  consequence,  and  from  idea  to 
idea,  without  again  relying  upon  the  sight  of  sensible  objects. 
This  is  what  we  desire  to  say  here.  In  possession  of  a  single 
one  of  God's  attributes,  reason  possesses  all  the  others,  and 
can  deduce  them  from  the  first,  by  syllogism,  as  we  deduce 
from  an  algebraic  figure,  by  means  of  identity,  advancing 
from  equation  to  equation,  all  which  the  given  formula  im- 
plies. It  is  undoubtedly  to  this  that  Aristotle  alludes  when 
he  asserts  that  the  exact  process  of  the  geometricians  applies 
to  intelligible  things. 

However  this  may  be,  that  attribute  of  God  which  implies 
all  the  others,  is  what  scholastics  call  the  metaphysical  es- 

20 


306  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

sence  of  God.  Only  it  was  usele.33,  it  seems,  to  disagree  upon 
the  question  as  to  which  of  God's  attributes  should  be  called 
his  metaphysical  essence ;  since  clearly  every  attribute  which 
characterizes  God  is  a  formula  whence  we  may  deduce  all  the 
rest.  The  teaching  of  theology  on  this  point  is  evident, 
namely :  "  That  no  real  distinction  can  be  admitted  between 
the  attributes  of  God,  nor  between  God  and  his  attributes." 
Therefore  each  attribute  of  God  being,  in  essence,  identical 
with  every  other  and  with  God,  reason  may  derive  all  the 
others  from  each  one,  and  take  each  one  among  them  as  the 
metaphysical  essence  of  God.  It  is  this  principle  of  the  ab- 
solute identity  of  all  that  is  in  God,  which  the  sophists  so 
abuse  in  their  system  of  identity;  instead  of  reserving  this 
principle  for  God,  who  alone  is  simple  and  absolutely  iden- 
tical in  himself,  they  apply  it  to  all,  God  and  the  world  being 
classed  together. 

Thus,  every  postulate  that  implies  the  infinite  is  the  meta- 
physical essence  of  God,  and  may  serve  reason  as  a  principle 
for  the  obtainment  of  God's  attributes.  One  attribute  of  God 
being  given,  to  take  it  as  a  principle  and  deduce  the  other 
attributes  from  it,  by  means  of  syllogistic  consequence  and 
algebraic  identity,  is  a  task  often  essayed  by  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas ;  for  instance,  in  the  beginning  of  his  Philosophic 
Sum,  and  in  the  beginning  of  his  Ninth  Opuscule,  which  is 
an  abridged  Theology.  In  both  places  he  first  proves  the  ex- 
istence of  God  from  the  fact  of  motion.  By  applying  to  this 
fact  the  dialectic  or  inductive  process  which  gives  the  majors, 
he  infers  the  existence  of  immutable  being.  Then  from  im- 
mutability, taken  as  the  metaphysical  essence  of  God,  he 
deduces  all  the  divine  attributes. 

This  deduction  may  be  effected  in  several  ways.  We  may 
at  the  start  establish  a  first  attribute,  be  it  what  it  may,  from 
this  first  deduce  a  second,  from  the  second  a  third,  and  so  on,  as 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  does.  Again,  we  may  establish  a  first 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF  GOD.  307 

attribute,  and  from  it  derive  all  the  rest  as  rays  around  a 
centre.  We  may  combine  these  two  methods  and  deduce  each 
attribute  in  succession  either  from  that  which  was  taken  as 
the  principle,  or  from  those  already  deduced.  This  exercise 
should  be  given  in  logic  several  times  to  every  student  of 
philosophy.  It  is  the  simplest  and  best  exercise  in  pure  ra- 
tiocination which  can  possibly  be  proposed.  There  is  a  true 
algebraic  identity  in  the  deduction,  to  those  who  can  take  the 
words  strictly  and  in  their  absolute  simplicity.  The  thesis 
of  God's  attributes  is  unique  in  this  respect,  from  the  very 
fact  that  here  every  point  leads  to  every  other,  and  we  know 
in  advance  that  there  is  identity  everywhere.  Only  it  is  not 
always  easy  to  grasp,  to  see,  and  to  express  the  identity 
clearly. 

Here  is  an  instance  of  deduction,  starting  from  the  attri- 
bute of  God  contained  in  the  words  of  Scripture  :  "  /  am  that 
I  am."  From  the  idea  of  Being,  or,  if  you  prefer,  from  this 
proposition,  "  Being  is,"  we  will  first  deduce  what  are  called 
the  metaphysical  attributes  of  God. 

To  do  this  we  must  take  everything  with  mathematical 
precision.  We  suppose  it  to  be  true  —  purely,  simply,  and 
absolutely  true  —  that  Being  is,  —  a  proposition,  moreover, 
which  is  the  clearest  of  identical  propositions,  and,  as  it  were, 
the  criterion  of  rational  evidence. 

Besides,  it  is  plain  enough  that  when  we  speak  of  Being, 
simply  and  absolutely,  we  refer  to  absolute  being,  and  not 
to  relative  beings.  This  results  from  the  very  nature  itself 
of  language.  The  pantheists  abuse  words,  and  found  their 
systems  upon  this  abuse,  when  they  at  .the  same  time  des- 
ignate both  absolute  Being  and  relative  beings  by  the  word 
Being. 

1.  This  established,  if  Being  is,  simply  and  absolutely,  it 
is  not  a  finite  being,  for  finite  being  is  up  to  a  certain  point, 
and  not  beyond  it.  It  is  only  within  limits  and  under  pe- 


308  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

culiar  conditions ;  it  is  not  simply  and  absolutely.     Therefore, 
the  Being  which  is  is  not  finite  therefore  it  is  infinite. 

2.  Let  us  follow  the   deduction   rigorously.     Let  us  set 
aside  the  hahit  of  seeing  everything  partially  and  relatively. 
If  Being  is  infinite,  it  is  a  strict  identity  to  add  that  it  is 
infinite  in  every  sense.     It  is  well  to  add  this,  merely  because 
we  have  a  weakness  for  falling  back  upon  our  limited,  partial, 
relative  imaginations.     Let  us  reject  these  customary  distrac- 
tions ;  we  are  in  algebra ;  we  must  take  things  strictly  and 
simply.     It  is  obvious,  I  say,  that  if  Being  is  infinite,  that 
means  identically  that  it  is  infinite  in  every  sense,  since  if 
it  ceased  to  be  infinite  in  one  sense,  it  would  be  finite  in 
that  sense,  it  would  not  be  the  infinite.     Where  there  is  a 
limit  in  any  sense  whatever,  in  that  point  and  in  that  sense 
it  would  cease  to  Be ;  therefore  it  would  not  be  Being,  as  we 
have  stated. 

Therefore,  if  Being  is,  it  is  infinite  in  every  sense. 

3.  If  Being  is,  it  is  all  that  is  possible;    otherwise   it 
would  not  be  absolutely.     It  is  all  that  is  possible;    it  is 
this  infinitely ;  since  if  it  were  not  infinitely  such  possible 
it  would  have,  in  that  mode  of  being  and  in  that  sense,  a 
limit  beyond  which  it  would  not  be.     If  it  is,  it  is  infinitely 
all  that  is  possible. 

4.  If  Being  is,  it  is  immense  and  eternal;   this  is  the 
same  argument  as  for  the  infinity.     If  it  were  not  eternal, 
this  would  imply  that  there  would  be  a  time  when  it  would 
not  be ;  if  it  were  not  immense,  this  would  imply  that  there 
would  be  a  place  where  it  would  not  be.     It  would  therefore 
not  le  purely,  simply,  and  absolutely.      Moreover,  we  see 
clearly  that  eternity  and  immensity  are  two  attributes  iden- 
tical with  infinity. 

5.  If   Being  is,  it    follows    that   it   is   necessary.      The 
question,  Why  is  there  anything?   is  irrational.     From  the 
very  fact  that  Being  is,  it  follows  that  it  cannot  cease  to 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF   GOD.  309 

be.  The  question  is,  like  this  statement,  fundamentally 
absurd:  "If  God  did  not  exist,  we  should  have  to  invent 
him." 

Being  is  necessary  because  it  is. 

There  was  never  a  possibility  of  choice  between  Being  and 
nothing,  from  the  very  fact  that  Being  is  eternal.  Therefore 
there  never  was,  and  there  never  could  be,  any  chance  for  the 
non-existence  of  absolute  Being.  It  could  not  be  that  Being 
should  not  be ;  as  it  could  not  be  that  nothing  should  be : 
these  two  propositions  are  contradictory  in  terms.  While 
these  two  others:  Being  is,  and  Nothing  is  not,  are  two 
identical  propositions,  expressing  one  and  the  same  neces- 
sary truth :  Being  is,  it  is  necessarily.  If  you  can  conceive 
a  doubt  as  to  the  possibility  of  the  non-existence  of  being,  it 
is  because  you  have  not  the  idea  of  Being,  and  do  not  know 
the  force  of  the  word. 

Whence  it  also  follows  that  all  which  is  not  absolutely 
Being,  need  not  have  existed:  all  which  has  not  existed 
from  all  eternity  is  capable  of  non-existence,  and  is  only 
contingent. 

6.  If  Being  is,  it  is  by  itself.      For  if  it  were  not  by 
itself,  it  would  not  be  absolutely,  it  would  be  relative  be- 
ing, and  the  Being  by  which  it  would  be  would  be  Being  by 
itself,  —  that  is  to  say,  God.     Moreover,  if  Being  is  neces- 
sary, it  follows  that  it  is  by  itself;  this  is  the  same  idea 
under  two  forms. 

7.  A  very  important  and  absolutely  exact,  although  truly 
inconceivable  deduction,  —  as  are,  for  instance,  various  alge- 
braic deductions  in  their  geometrical  application,  —  is  that 
Being,  since  it  is  eternal  and  immense,  is  really  present  at 
all  points  of  time  and  space.     We  conceive  up  to  a  certain 
point  its  immensity,  its  omnipresence  at  all  points  of  space ; 
but  we  cannot  conceive  its  omnipresence  at  all  points  of 
time.     And  yet,  if  it  is  absolutely,  it  is  equally  at  all  times, 


310  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

in  every  plaee ;  with  God  there  is  neither  past  nor  future,  — 
he  sees  and  includes  all  in  an  eternal  present.  Past,  present, 
and  future  coexist  in  the  infinite,  as  the  two  extreme  points 
and  the  centre  of  an  infinitesimal  element  coexist  in  a  single, 
simple,  and  unextended  point. 

8.  If  God  exists  absolutely,  he  is  simple.     For  if  he  were 
not  simple,  he  would  be  composite  ;  if  he  were  composite,  he 
would  have  parts,  —  physical  or  spiritual  parts,  no  matter 
which.     If  he  had  physical  parts,  one  part  would  be  in  one 
point,  another  elsewhere;  he  would  not  be  entire  in  every 
point ;  he  would  not,  therefore,  be  absolutely  in  one  of  the 
points,  nor  absolutely  in  the  other  point,  he  would  there- 
fore not  be  absolutely.     If  they  were  spiritual,  immaterial 
parts,  they  would  be  distinct  attributes,  one  of  which  would 
not  be  the  other,  and  would  not  be  wholly  he,  —  which  hence 
would  be  limited  the  one  by  the  other,  and  limited  relatively 
to  him ;  they  would  therefore  be  limited,  and  not  infinite 
attributes.     Hence  he  would  not  exist,  in  the  sense  of  these 
limited  attributes,  save  up  to  a  certain  point,  not  bey9nd  it ; 
he  would  not  be  absolutely.     Therefore  God,  being  unable 
to  be  in  any  way  composite,  is  absolutely  simple ;  therefore 
his  attributes  are  necessarily  identical  each  with  the  other, 
and  with  his  essence.     Therefore  we  can  establish  a  strictly 
exact  equation  between  all  the  attributes  of  God  himself  and 
his  being  and  his  essence,  and  we  can  say,  with  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas :  "  God  himself  is  his  essence.1     In  God,  being  and 
essence   are   identical.2     God's   intelligence   is   his   essence.3 
His  will  is   his   essence.4      God   is   his   life ; 5   God  is   his 
beatitude."  6 

9.  God,  therefore,  is  absolutely  simple  and  absolutely  one. 
He  is  unity  itself.     He  alone  is  unity.     No  being  has  its 

1  Contra  Gent.,  book  i.  cap.  xxi.  4  Summa  contra  Gentes. 

2  Ibid.,  cap.  xxii.  6  Ibid. 

3  Ibid.,  xlv»  6  Ibid. 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF   GOD.  311 

unity  save  in  him.  The  infinite  alone  is  absolutely  one,  for 
the  infinite  alone  is  total ;  no  created  being  is  total,  none  is 
absolutely  complete.  There  is  no  concrete  unity,  save  God, 
which  is  absolute.  Which  ?  a  mass  of  matter  ?  Since 
space  is  capable  of  infinite  division,  that  quantity  of  matter 
must  be  infinite  to  fill  the  volume,  —  that  is  to  say,  to  con- 
tain an  actually  infinite  number  of  points  :  which  is  impos- 
sible, since  created  being  is  finite.  All  created  unity  is 
approximate ;  it  is  the  image  of  unity,  but  not  unity.  An 
atom  is  one  only  in  its  centre  and  by  its  centre,  which  is  not 
it.  So  with  souls  and  ideas.  Where  is  there  an  idea  abso- 
lutely one,  total,  and  full  ?  Such  an  idea  can  only  exist  in 
God;  it  is  infinite,  it  is  God. 

Therefore  absolute  being  is  simple  and  a  unit. 

10.  It  is  simple  and  a  unit  in  itself ;  but  it  is  also  one  in 
the  sense  that  there  is  but  one  absolute  being.     To  state  the 
distinction  between  two  absolute  beings  would  be  to  state  the 
distinction  between  two  identicals  or  two  indiscernibles,  says 
Leibnitz.     It  would  be  to  state  two  infinites.     It  would  be 
to   state   this   formula :    the   infinite  plus   the   infinite,  —  a 
formula  which  has  no  meaning  in  algebra,  and  cannot  be 
stated ;  or  which  would  signify  exactly  the  only  infinite. 

11,  He  who  is,  is  immutable;  for  what  is  change?     It  is 
to  become  that  which  you  were  not,  or  to  cease  being  what 
you  were.     But  if  the  infinite  becomes,  if  he  gain  anything 
in  any  sense,  then  he  was  not  in  that  sense,  or  from  the 
point  where  he  begins  to  gain  ;  if  he  lose  anything,  he  ceases 
to  be  in   that   sense;   he   was   not  and  is   not   absolutely. 
Therefore,  if  he  is  he  is  immutable.     Therefore  he  is  actu- 
ally all  that  he  is.     He  is  not  in  a  state  of  growth,  like  us ; 
he  is  not,  like  us,  partly  in  act  and  partly  in  potentiality. 
He  is  all  act.     He  is  pure  act,  as  Aristotle  and  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas  so  well  express  it,  —  a  formula  which  is  one  of  the 
simplest,  most  perfect,  and  most  fecund  to  teach  the  knowl- 


312  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

edge  of  God.  If  he  is  all  act,  he  is  all  his  potentiality 
deployed;  he  is  all  potentiality  actually  present,  living. 

12.  Finally,  unless  we  deny  that  there  are  finite  and 
relative  beings  aside  from  the  absolute  Being,  it  is  true  that 
these  finite  beings,  as  incapable  of  becoming  or  of  beginning 
if  nothing  existed,  could  begin  only  through  the  Being  which 
already  was.  Therefore  that  Being  had  the  power  to  produce 
all  that  which  is  produced;  but  since  those  beings  which 
are  were  not,  it  follows  that  he  produced,  created,  them  out 
of  nothing ;  but  to  produce  that  which  was  not  is  possible 
only  to  an  infinite  power.  No  finite  power  could  produce 
anything  out  of  nothing.  Infinite  power  alone  is  capable 
of  producing  out  of  nothing.  This  is  what  these  algebraic 
formulas  symbolize :  Zero  multiplied  ly  any  quantity  what- 
soever equals  zero  ;  zero  multiplied  ly  the  infinite  equals  any 
quantity  whatsoever. 

Therefore  absolute  Being  is  also  omnipotent. 

II. 

Thus  far  we  have  deduced  from  the  idea  of  Being  what 
may  be  called  the  metaphysical  attributes  of  God,  —  in- 
finity, immensity,  eternity,  necessary  existence,  undivided- 
ness,  simplicity,  unity,  immutability,  pure  actuality,  and 
omnipotence. 

But  all  the  philosophers  or  theologians  see  at  least  two 
distinct  orders  of  attributes  in  God,  —  metaphysical  attributes 
and  moral  attributes. 

Those  who  distinguish  three  orders  of  attributes,  meta- 
physical, intellectual,  and  moral,  —  those  have  still  more 
clearly  seen  that  which  was  to  be  distinguished. 

When  Clarke,  having  developed  the  metaphysical  attri- 
butes, comes  to  the  intellectual  attributes,  he  begins  in  these 
words  :  "  The  hottest  dispute  between  the  atheists  and  our- 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF  GOD.  313 

selves  rages  about  this  proposition.  And  indeed,  who  does 
not  admit  the  existence  of  an  eternal  Being,  infinite  power 
and  origin  of  all  things,  whether  this  world  be  his  work  or 
be  himself  ? "  The  spirit  of  atheism  tolerates  such  a  God, 
—  a  physical,  geometrical,  and  mechanical  God,  who  is  infi- 
nitely all  that  which  we  find  in  nature  and  its  laws.  Be- 
tween such  a  God  and  infinite  intelligence  lies  a  great  void ; 
intelligence  is  quite  another  aspect,  and  like  another  dimen- 
sion, of  being. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  void  which  reason  encounters  here. 
Grant  that  the  absolute,  eternal,  immense,  immutable  Being 
possesses  intelligence;  add  to  infinite  power  infinite  intelli- 
gence,—  freedom,  will,  and  goodness  would  still  be  lacking. 

Is  this  being  of  infinite  power  and  intelligence  free ;  does 
he  will,  does  he  love  ?  This  is  again  another  order  of  things, 
another  face,  and  a  new  dimension  of  Being. 

And,  indeed,  there  are  minds  which  stop  at  the  first  dimen- 
sion of  Being,  and  ignore  the  other  two  ;  and  there  are  those 
who  accept  the  first  and  second,  like  Spinoza,  while  they 
reject  the  third,  without  which  we  have  no  more  idea  of 
God  than  we  have  the  idea  of  a  body,  without  the  idea  of 
the  three  dimensions. 

In  mathematics,  unity,  taken  simply,  geometrically  repre- 
sents linear  unity,  —  an  abstract  thing ;  unity  multiplied  by 
unity,  which  is  still  unity,  represents  unity  of  surface,  —  an 
abstract  thing ;  but  unity  thrice  taken  as  factor,  the  product 
still  being  unity,  represents  unity  of  bulk,  —  a  concrete  thing. 
Unity  taken  as  factor  a  still  greater  number  of  times,  repre- 
sents nothing  more. 

Thus,  unity  thrice  taken  as  factor,  neither  more  nor  less, 
alone  has  a  concrete  geometrical  meaning. 

So,  too,  I  say  that  the  order  of  the  metaphysical  attributes, 
taken  quite  alone,  is  an  abstraction  of  the  mind,  a  selection 
from  the  complete,  subsistent,  and  living  being. 


314  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

So,  too,  with  the  first  two  orders  taken  together.  We  must 
have  all  three.  Being  has  its  three  necessary  dimensions ; 
and  the  formula  of  infinite  being  would  be  not  only  the 
infinite,  but  the  infinite  multiplied  ~by  the  infinite  multiplied 
by  the  infinite,  —  which  is  still  simple  unity,  just  as,  algebrai- 
cally, unity  multiplied  by  itself  is  always  unity. 

Having  said  this,  we  must  inquire  whether  the  intellectual 
and  moral  attributes,  as  well  as  the  metaphysical  attributes, 
are  deduced  from  the  idea  of  Being. 

It  is  certain  that  Clarke  does  not  perform  this  deduction 
a  priori.  He  again  steeps  himself  in  reality,  returns  to 
earth,  redescends  into  his  own  soul,  sees  there  freedom  and 
intelligence,  and  thence,  no  longer  by  deduction,  but  by  the 
inverse  process,  he  transfers  these  things  to  God,  raised  to 
infinity. 

In  fact,  it  is  thus  that  the  mind  usually  proceeds,  both  for 
the  intellectual  and  the  moral  attributes.  We  see  the  three 
worlds  described  by  Pascal,  —  the  world  of  bodies,  the  world 
of  minds,  and  the  world  of  love.  We  see  the  three  rays 
contained  in  the  ray  of  physical  life,  —  the  ray  of  force,  the 
ray  of  light,  and  the  ray  of  heat.  We  see  the  three  rays 
contained  in  the  ray  of  spiritual  life,  which  not  only  is,  but 
which  loves  arid  knows,  and  we  transfer  to  God  this  neces- 
sary triplicity  of  all  totality. 

Yet  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  deduces  everything  from  the 
idea  of  immutable  being,  —  even  intelligence,  freedom,  good- 
ness, and  will.  He  proceeds  by  a  method  which  Clarke 
regards  as  correct,  but  difficult,  and  of  which  he  says :  "  I  will 
not  employ,  to  prove  it,  the  reason  that  that  which  exists  by 
itself  must  be  invested  with  all  possible  perfections;  the 
thing  in  itself  is  very  certain,  but  it  is  of  such  a  nature  that 
it  cannot  readily  be  demonstrated  a  priori" 1 

Saint  Thomas  takes  this  method,  and  having  demonstrated 

1  On  the  Existence  of  God,  Clarke,  chap.  ix.  prop.  viii. 


0^  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF   GOD.  315 

that  God  is  infinite,  he  deduces  from  this  that  in  God  we 
must  necessarily  find  all  perfections  which  exist  in  all  beings, 
and  find  them  superabundantly.  If  this  be  so,  he  says,  God 
must  be  intelligent.1 

Now,  although  in  Clarke's  eyes  this  process  of  Saint 
Thomas  differs  from  that  which  he  himself  employs,  it  is 
plain  enough  that  the  two  processes  are  but  one,  and  that 
Saint  Thomas,  as  well  as  Clarke,  in  order  to  pass  to  the  in- 
tellectual and  moral  attributes,  not  only  deduces  the  idea  of 
intelligence  and  goodness  from  the  idea  of  immutable  being 
by  the  way  of  identity,  but  goes  back  to  experience  and 
reality,  to  the  human  soul,  and  there  again  sees,  as  Saint 
Paul  says,  the  invisible  perfections  of  God  through  the 
spectacle  of  the  creation. 

The  metaphysical  —  that  is,  abstract  —  attributes  of  physi- 
cal things  are,  as  their  name  shows,  revealed  by  the  sight  of 
material  bodies  in  the  light  of  reason ;  the  intellectual  attri- 
butes are  revealed  to  the  mind  by  the  mind ;  arid  the  moral 
attributes  by  the  heart,  by  the  consciousness  of  freedom. 

And  yet,  if  we  cannot  rigorously  deduce  both  his  intelli- 
gence and  his  freedom  from  the  idea  of  God's  being  (which, 
moreover,  we  do  not  hold  to  be  impossible),  this  is  due  to  the 
limitations  of  our  faculties  or  of  our  actual  knowledge.  For 
it  is  certain,  as  Saint  Thomas  instantly  adds,  that  God,  being 
absolutely  simple,  is  his  own  intelligence  as  well  as  his 
own  being.  In  God,  being  and  intelligence  are  identical; 
in  him  will  is  identical  with  intelligence  as  well  as  with 
being.  Therefore,  with  sufficient  penetration  and  sufficient 
knowledge,  we  might  advance,  by  means  of  identity,  from 
being  to  intelligence  and  freedom,  or  rather  we  should  see 
that  Being  is  absolutely,  necessarily,  simply,  all  this  together. 

1  Opusc.  ix.  chap.  xxi.  and  chap,  xxviii. 


316  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 


III. 

Whether  we  follow  out  the  idea  of  being,  taken  in  itself, 
or  the  knowledge  of  ourselves,  transfigured  by  reason,  we 
say:  Being  is  intelligent. 

Then,  we  at  once  see  that  all  the  metaphysical  attributes 
of  being  are  applicable  to  intelligence,  which  is  identical 
with  being,  since  it  has  already  been  proved  that  being  is 
absolutely  simple,  and  that  all  its  attributes  are  identical. 
Therefore  the  intelligence  of  Being  is  Being  itself,  or  Being 
itself  is  intelligence.  Therefore,  too,  since  Being  is  sim- 
ple, infinite,  eternal,  immutable,  wholly  actual  and  omnip- 
otent, its  intelligence  which  is  itself,  has  precisely  these 
characteristics. 

It  is  simple,  not  discursive,  not  composite,  like  our  own. 
In  it,  everything  is  one  in  the  distinction.  It  is  infinite,  and 
it  extends  itself  to  infinite  being,  and  to  all  relative,  possible, 
or  actual  being.  It  is  eternal,  that  is,  equally  present  at  all 
times,  knowing  all  in  an  eternal  present.  It  is  immutable 
and  immovable,  and  can  neither  forget  nor  acquire.  It  is, 
therefore,  all  act ;  never  passing,  like  our  mind,  from  poten- 
tiality to  act,  from  darkness  to  light.  It  is  not  a  faculty,  a 
power,  a  quality  of  being,  it  is  Being  itself,  —  it  is  its 
very  essence.  Far  more,  its  present  act  of  intelligence  is  its 
very  substance.1  And,  finally,  it  is  its  omnipotence.2  God, 
says  Saint  Augustine, — repeated  by  Saint  Thomas,  —  does 
not  know  things  because  they  are,  but  they  are  because  he 
knows  them.3 

What  does  he  know  ?  In  the  first  place,  he  knows  himself 
wholly.  God  is  the  identity  of  the  intelligible  and  the  in- 
telligent, as  Aristotle  expresses  it,  and  Saint  Thomas  develops 

1  la,  lae,  q.  xiv.  a.  4.  2  Ibid.,  a.  8. 

8  15  De  Trint.,  cap.  xiii.  la,  ltte,  q.  xiv.  a.  8. 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF  GOD.  317 

it,1  quoting,  as  applicable  to  God  alone,  these  weighty  words  : 
"  The  Being  who  knows  his  essence  is  identical  with  his 
essence." 2 

He  not  only  knows  himself,  but  he  knows  all  which  he 
has  created,  since,  indeed,  his  intelligence,  joined  with  his 
will,  is  the  cause  of  creation.  And  there  is  in  God  not  only 
the  unitary  idea  of  himself,  but  also  the  multiple  ideas  of 
divers  things. 

And  what  are  these  ideas  in  God  ?  No  one  has  so  well 
expressed  it  as  Saint  Augustine,  repeated  by  Saint  Thomas : 
"  Ideas  are  the  principles  or  formal  reasons  of  things,  reasons 
stable,  immutable,  and  independent  of  every  principle  other 
than  themselves;  eternal,  subsisting  in  the  intelligence  of 
God.  They  are  not  born,  and  do  not  die ;  and  yet  they  are 
the  model  of  all  which  may  be  born  and  die,  of  all  which  is 
born  and  dies."  3  They  are  in  God,  and  they  are  God.  God 
sees  them  because  he  sees  himself ;  but  if  he  is  simple,  how 
can  he  see  divers  ideas  in  himself  ?  He  can,  says  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas;  and  thus:  "He  knows  his  essence,  —  he  knows  it, 
just  so  far  as  it  is  knowable.  He  can  therefore  know  it 
not  only  in  accordance  with  what  it  is  in  itself,  but  also  in 
accordance  with  the  partial  resemblance  which  any  one  of 
his  creatures  may  bear  to  it.  But  that  which  constitutes 
the  species  of  a  creature,  is  its  degree  of  likeness  to  this 
divine  essence.  Therefore,  when  God  knows  his  essence 
in  so  far  as  it  is  imitable  by  that  creature,  he  knows  it  as 
the  reason  or  idea  of  that  same  creature.  Thus  God  sees 
in  himself  distinct  ideas  of  things."4 

1  De  Trinit.,  cap.  xiii.  la,  lae,  q.  xir. 

2  "  Omnis  sciens,  qui  scit  suara  essentiam,  et  rediens  ad  suam  essentiara  est 
rediens  ad  suam  essentiam  reditione  completa." 

8  Lib.  de  divers  Qusest.,  q.  xlvi.  — Ia  q.  xv.  art.  2. 

4  Ia  q.  xv.  art.  2.  ff 


318  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 


IV. 

Are  there  in  God  will,  freedom,  goodness,  love?  Does 
God's  providence  pervade  the  world  ? 

I  cannot  help  again  asserting  that  the  idea  of  being,  fully 
explained,  if  we  can  set  aside  the  habit  of  limiting  and  ab- 
stracting everything,  of  positing,  even  in  being,  the  negation 
only  fitted  for  nonentity,  and  of  never  wholly  daring  to  main- 
tain universal  affirmation,  - —  the  idea  of  being,  I  repeat,  is  iden- 
tical with  that  of  power,  intelligence,  will,  freedom,  and  love. 
Take  away  any  of  these  things,  and  you  destroy  that  which 
is.  Is  not  this  clear  ?  Take  away  intelligence,  take  away 
love,  take  away  freedom,  which  takes  away  love,  —  you  blind 
the  sight,  you  tear  out  the  heart  of  him  who  was,  and  you  so 
wholly  deprive  him  of  being  that  you  then  say  :  There  is  no 
God.  You  say  this,  and  justly.  There  is  no  longer  a  su- 
perior Being  above  us  ;  there  is  only  an  inferior  being.  We 
are  superior  to  this  shattered  God,  —  incomparably  superior  ; 
since  we  know,  will,  love.  There  is  no  longer  an  absolute 
being. 

But  independently  of  the  possible  deduction  from  being  of 
goodness  and  love,  reason  establishes  the  fact  directly,  by  its 
chief  process,  that  God  is  infinitely  good,  free,  and  loving, 
since  there  are  in  us  traces  of  freedom,  love,  and  goodness. 

God  is  free,  he  is  good,  and  he  loves ;  and  all  this,  in  refer- 
ence to  God's  relation  to  the  world,  may  be  summed  up  in  a 
single  word  which  also  implies  his  wisdom  and  his  power, 
—  the  word  "  Providence,"  or  the  paternal  government  of 
the  world. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  sophists  of  all  ages  regard  these 
words  as  devoid  of  meaning.  But  in  our  opinion  these  very 
words  are  most  full  of  meaning,  while  abstract  words,  even 
when  exact,  are  empty. 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF   GOD.  319 

If  the  sophists,  on  this  subject,  as  well  as  concerning  the 
words  referring  to  it,  see  the  opposite  of  what  we  see,  this  is 
a  necessity,  and  is  explained  by  that  strange  fact  but  too 
little  known,  —  namely,  that,  as  Plato  and  Leibnitz  say, 
sophists  are  minds  so  perverted  that  they  see  everything 
inversely.  In  fact,,  they  are  minds  which  have  by  artificial 
means  learned  to  see,  not  things  themselves,  but  only  their 
own  abstract  thought  of  them.  These  minds,  therefore,  are 
like  eyes  which  have  succeeded,  by  an  artifice,  in  changing 
the  nature  of  their  vision,  so  that  they  no  longer  see  objects 
themselves,  but  the  images  of  these  things  on  the  retina, 
They  would  thus  see  all  objects  inverted,  since  the  image  on 
the  retina  is  always  inverted.  Thus,  I  say,  the  sophists  see 
invertedly.  Hence,  if  we  take  the  opposite  of  what  they 
assert,  we  have  the  truth. 

I  ask  how  it  is  possible  not  to  see  that  God  governs  the 
world  by  his  providence.  I  ask  to  what  degree  of  blindness 
and  intellectual  inversion  a  man  must  attain  to  say,  with 
Lucretius,  — 

"Do  not  think  that  eyes  were  given  us  that  we  might  see 
the  world  about  us  ;  that  our  feet  are  flexible  so  that  we  may 
walk  ;  that  strong  arms,  that  two  hands,  opposite  and  skilful, 
were  given  us  that  we  might  use  them.  All  that  is  thus  inter- 
preted, is  interpreted  quite  wrongly ;  it  is  all  inverted.  Nothing 
was  given  us  that  we  might  make  use  of  it ;  that  which  exists, 
that  is  what  determines  the  use  that  is  made  of  it." l 

"  Lumina  ne  facias  oculorum  clara  creata 
Prospicere  ut  possimus;  et  ut  proferre  viai 
Proceros  passus,  ideo  vestigia  posse 
Sura  rum  ac  feminum  pedibus  fundata  plicari ; 
Brachia  turn  porro  validis  aptata  lacertis 
Esse,  manusque  datas  utraque  ex  parte  ministras 
Ut  jacere  ad  vitam  possimus,  quse  foret  usus. 
Ccetera  de  genere  hoc  inter  qusecumque  pretantur, 
Omnia  perversa  prcepostera  sunt  ratione  ; 
Nil  ideo  natum  est  a  nostro  corpore  ut  uti 
Possimus,  sed  quod  natum  est  id  procreat  usnm." 


320  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

Is  this  credible  ?  Wherein  does  Lucretius  differ  here  from 
one  who  should  say,  "  Men  think  that  their  feet  are  below, 
and  their  head  is  above,  but  it  is  just  the  opposite "  ? 

We  must  say  frankly  that  a  man  must  have  lost  his 
sense  and  forsworn  his  reason  not  to  admit  that  our  eyes  were 
given  us  to  see,  our  limbs  to  walk  and  act;  not  to  under- 
stand that  a  deep  knowledge  and  deep  goodness,  sustained 
by  an  infinite  power,  framed  our  bodies  and  this  world,  and 
left  their  mark  and,  as  it  were,  their  signature,  upon  the 
whole  and  on  every  detail.  Let  us  leave  abstract  arguments ; 
here  are  palpable  realities. 

Yesterday,  I  held  in  my  hand  a  fragment  of  flesh  taken 
by  science  from  a  corpse.  It  was  a  part  of  the  aorta,  taken 
from  the  point  where  that  arterial  trunk  arises  from  the 
heart.  I  admired  that  door  of  the  heart,  whence  life  gushes 
with  the  blood  throughout  the  body,  —  a  door  so  constructed 
that  it  is  always  both  open  and  shut ;  wide  open  and  close 
shut:  open  to  life  which  rushes  forth,  and  closed  to  life 
/which  might  try  to  withdraw.  I  felt  that  tissue,  frail  as  a 
rose-leaf,  but  of  matchless  firmness  ;  fitted  to  vanish,  as  if  it 
did  not  exist,  before  the  blood  coming  from  the  heart,  and  to 
reappear,  inflexible,  so  soon  as  the  tide  pauses  and  makes  a 
brief  return  towards  the  heart.  The  tiniest  reflux  itself 
collects  the  three  portions  of  the  barrier,  adapts  them  by  its 
motion,  and  closes  them  before  it.  But  lest  the  slight  web, 
too  firmly  united  to  the  arch  of  the  canal,  should  some  day 
forget  its  task  unseasonably,  each  fold  of  the  valve  is  pro- 
vided with  a  button  which  the  reflux  must  needs  grasp  for 
its  own  restraint;  and  this  delicate  action  is  performed  in 
my  breast  at  every  beat  of  my  heart,  quickening  with  emo- 
tion, adapting  its  rhythm  to  my  thought,  my  necessity,  my 
effort,  —  the  impulse  of  my  soul;  growing  calmer  when  I 
sleep,  and  resuming  the  mathematical  regularity  which  rests 
and  renews  me.  And  this  goes  on  within  me  for  half  a 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  GOD.  321 

% 

century,  —  it  may  be  a  century,  —  giving  me  fresh  life  with 
every  throb,  and  sweeping  away  death  in  the  intervening 
space. 

Now,  the  whole  life  of  my  body  and  all  the  mechanism  of 
my  life,  as  to-day  known  to  science,  is  made  up  of  a  mil- 
lion such  details,  all  bearing  the  mark  of  the  Maker,  after 
the  same  fashion ;  moreover,  all  tend  to  the  same  purpose ; 
moreover,  all  these  details,  adapted  to  each  other  in  the 
unity  of  my  life,  are  in  their  turn  adapted  to  the  unity  of 
universal  life,  and  to  millions  of  other  marvels  in  the  midst 
of  which  I  live. 

Whence  does  the  heart,  whose  every  fresh  impulse  gives 
me  new  life,  derive  that  life  ?  It  comes  to  it  from  without, 
—  a  perpetual  source,  which  comes  to  us  without  our  aid ; 
whose  unfailing  beneficence  dwells  in  my  own  breast,  affords 
it  its  chief  nourishment.  Thousands  of  secondary  forms  of 
nourishment  are  within  my  grasp ;  there  is  another  life  than 
mine,  which  produces  them  and  gives  them  birth  about  me. 
I  am  hungry,  and  there  is  bread ;  and  moreover,  that  bread 
gives  me  life.  And  that  hunger  and  that  bread,  and  that 
power  given  to  the  bread  to  support  life,  and  the  countless 
means  of  attaining  this  end,  —  all  this  is  again  made  up 
of  thousands  of  details,  each  adapted  to  the  other,  each  of 
which,  taken  separately,  is  a  miracle,  and  the  sum  total  of 
which,  we  may  well  say,  is  the  very  sight  of  God's  hands 
and  God's  labor  to  nourish  me. 

Before  I  existed,  and  before  the  first  man  existed,  God 
formed  this  globe  out  of  a  previous  vapor.  He  made  it  into 
a  rock,  welded  it  with  fire;  he  cooled  this  burning  lava, 
clothed  the  rock  with  water,  and  brought  it  within  reach  of 
the  sun.  He  traced  upon  the  ocean,  which  covered  every- 
thing, the  plan  for  a  palace  and  a  garden,  and  caused  palace 
and  garden  to  spring  from  the  deep  waters.  Then,  on  the 
arid  soil  of  the  garden  he  spread  that  fertile  earth  suited  for 

21 


322  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

plants,  and  he  ordered  it  to  bring  forth  plants.  The  dwell- 
ing was  magnificently  adorned  and  richly  provided  with 
fruit  and  food ;  there  were,  moreover,  deposited  beneath  the 
ground  instruments,  and,  in  case  of  need,  arms  and  treasures. 
God  then  created  another  marvel,  —  animated  servitors, 
docile  powers,  animals. 

And  the  plan  of  all  this  abode,  in  the  eyes  of  science  able 
to  see,  is  clearly  a  plan  traced  by  intelligent  goodness  for  the 
education  of  a  race  of  men. 

When  all  was  ready,  there  was  a  day  like  our  present  clay, 
and  measured  by  the  same  sun,  —  a  day  whose  date  is  cer- 
tain, although  unknown  ;  there  was  a  spot  where  man,  who 
an  hour  before  did  not  exist  upon  the  earth,  was  placed. 

In  the  midst  of  this  mute  and  unintelligent  world  sud- 
denly appears  a  being  who  stands  upright,  who  speaks 
and  thinks,  and  who,  addressing  the  invisible,  says :  "  My 
Father !  " 

All  this  is  thus,  and  we  see  it  with  our  own  eyes. 

But  who  was  the  nurse  and  the  mother  of  that  nascent 
man  ?  Who  taught  the  first  man  to  walk  and  to  talk  ? 
There  is  no  choice  in  the  matter,  —  it  was  God. 

God,  like  that  poetic  king  of  whom  Virgil  speaks,  who 
bore  his  child  in  his  arms,  — 

44  Ipse  sinu  prse  se  portans," 

and  who  bound  him  to  his  lance  when  he  crossed  a  torrent, 
—  God,  Creator  and  King  of  the  world,  at  that  transitional 
moment  also  bore  his  child  in  his  arms  and  bound  him  to 
his  sceptre. 

Woe  unto  him  who  can  think  without  emotion  and  admi- 
ration of  that  unique  and  marvellous  moment  in  history,  — 
of  that  birthday  of  the  human  race ! 

It  is  not  a  question  of  Providence  here,  —  a  word  too 
abstract  and  too  cold  to  express  what  I  behold !  I  see  my 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF  GOD.  323 

beloved  father  and  mother  !  I  see  the  wisdom  and  the  sup- 
port of  a  father,  the  protecting  love  of  a  mother,  —  an  eternal 
father  and  mother,  who  are  God. 

Shall  I  believe  that  this  Father,  who  created  me  out  of 
nothing,  who  placed  me  on  this  earth,  who  supports  my  life, 
who  gives  me  intelligence  and  love,  no  longer  watches  over 
me?  No;  I  believe  and  I  see  that  which,  thank  God,  is 
taught  to  the  youngest  child,  and  which  the  youngest  child 
believes  and  understands :  I  believe  and  I  understand,  and 
cannot  fail  to  understand,  that  his  eye  is  ever  upon  me, 
that  he  sees  my  most  secret  thoughts,  knows  every  motion  of 
my  heart ;  that  in  every  throb  of  that  heart  he  incites  me  to 
love  him,  and  that,  ever  present  and  zealous,  he  labors  at  my 
celestial  education,  —  even  to  the  smallest  details  of  the 
minutest  actions  of  my  life. 

I  see,  I  understand,  and  cannot  fail  to  understand,  that 
this  is  true  of  every  man  and  of  all  mankind.  When  I 
know  the  philosophy  of  history,  as  I  believe  I  now  know 
that  of  my  own  life,  I  shall  understand  the  providential 
march  of  God  in  the  history  of  humanity,  as  I  see  it  now  in 
my  own  history ;  arid  if  the  history  of  the  world  be  so  slow, 
it  is  due  to  the  cause  which  makes  my  own  progress  slow. 
Now,  I  know  but  too  well  what  it  is  that  has  retarded  my 
advance. 

I  shall  then  know  that  God  co-operates  in  events  as  he 
co-operates  in  our  thoughts  and  actions,  and  that  he  has  a 
purpose  in  tracing  out  the  plan  of  history,  quite  as  much  as 
in  tracing  out  the  course  of  the  year.  The  purpose  of  the 
visible  plan  of  the  year  is  the  harvest :  is  not  the  purpose 
of  the  history  of  the  ages  a  harvest  too  ? 

Why  do  the  ages  move,  if  it  be  not  to  ripen  the  harvest  to 
which  the  Gospel  alludes,  and  to  prepare  the  work  of  the 
harvesters  whom  the  Father  of  the  family  shall  send  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  if  we  will  leave  abstractions,  to  look, 


324  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

in  accord  with  the  nature  of  human  vision,  at  what  is  before 
our  eyes,  we  shall  see,  without  any  possibility  of  a  question, 
God's  visible  presence  in  the  world. 

Yet  I  confess  that  there  is  a  shadow  over  the  picture,  and 
a  constant  contradiction  which  leads  many  to  doubt.  This 
shadow,  this  contradiction,  is  death.  Death  poisons  and 
destroys  everything ;  death  holds  all  else  in  check,  and 
annihilates  all  God's  gifts.  Where,  then,  is  Providence? 
Where  is  the  Father  ?  For  death  renders  his  work  null. 

Yes,  if  death  be  nothingness.  But  if  it  be  immortality, 
as  the  life  within  us  affirms,  —  which  we  should  rather 
believe  than  that  unknown  shadow  which  affrights  us, — 
then,  on  the  contrary,  death  is  but  a  final  feature  added 
to  the  perfection  of  the  picture.  It  is  the  feature  which 
explains  all  and  justifies  all ;  it  becomes  the  light  that  trans- 
figures the  whole  and  gives  it  an  eternal  significance :  for  it 
is  to  the  work  of  God  what  that  chief  act  of  my  reason  and 
my  will  is  to  the  life  of  my  heart  and  my  intelligence, 
which,  as  Fe'nelon  says,  breaks  and  sacrifices,  by  God's  help, 
the  limitations  of  my  intelligence  and  freedom,  to  enter  into 
the  infinitude  of  God. 

This  will  be  explained  more  fully  ^vhen  we  come  to  speak 
of  man's  death  and  immortality,  and  also  of  the  death  of  this 
world  and  its  reconstruction,  of  which  Leibnitz  says  :  "  This 
globe  shall  be  destroyed  and  renewed  whenever  the  govern- 
ment of  minds  demands  it." 


V. 

Before  concluding  this  study  of  the  attributes  of  God,  we 
must  point  out  that  to  which  we  consider  the  philosophic 
and  true  distinction  of  those  attributes  into  metaphysical, 
intellectual,  and  moral,  corresponds  in  theology.  This  dis- 
tinction corresponds  to  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity,  if  it  be 


ON  THE  ATTRIBUTES   OF   GOD.  325 

true  that,  as  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  says,  the  distinction  of 
persons  depends,  in  the  holy  Trinity,  upon  the  procession  of 
the  Word  from  the  Principle  which  speaks  it,  and  of  Love 
from  both.  (Beata  Trinitas  distinguitur  secundum  proces- 
sionem  Verbi  a  Dicente,  et  Amoris  db  utroque.) 

Since  non-Catholic  writers  abuse  this  divine  mystery, 
and  pantheists  found  their  entire  system  on  the  dogma, — 
as,  for  instance,  Lamennais'  entire  book  is  but  a  false  appli- 
cation of  it,  and  Hegel's  whole  system  an  absurd  interpreta- 
tion, —  I  do  not  see  why  Christians  should  be  forbidden  to 
consider  in  philosophy,  together  with  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas, 
Saint  Augustine,  and  others,  the  philosophical  side  of  this 
dogma,  and  its  possible  applications  to  the  knowledge  of 
man  and  the  world. 

Here  we  will  say  but  a  word  regarding  it.  We  will  say 
that  if  Christian  philosophy  be  developed,  —  that  is,  if  the 
only  philosophy  now  possible  and  useful  be  called  to  bear 
its  fruits,  —  the  wise  will  at  last  learn  that  power,  intelli- 
gence, and  love,  those  three  radical  distinctions,  are  to  abso- 
lute Being  what  the*  three  dimensions  are  to  the  body,  and 
that  they  constitute  its  unity,  as  the  product  of  the  three 
unities  of  dimension  constitute  the  unity  of  the  solid  body  ; 
that  they  no  more  destroy  its  simplicity  than  the  simplicity 
of  the  infinitesimal  element  of  the  solid  body  is  destroyed 
by  the  fact  that  we  are  bound  to  distinguish  in  it  the 
elements  of  the  three  dimensions ;  that,  lastly,  if  it  be  true 
that  in  living  organisms  the  highest  perfection  corresponds 
to  the  maximum  of  individuality  or  unity  combined  with  the 
maximum  of  distinction  in  the  organs,  then  in  absolute 
life  perfection  consists  in  absolute  unity,  combined  with 
absolute  distinction.  Now,  absolute  unity  is  simplicity,  and 
absolute  distinction  is  the  distinction  of  person  from  person. 
If,  therefore,  the  true  philosophy  be  developed,  we  shall 
understand  what  certain  theologians  have  said, — that  the 


826  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

distinction  of  persons  is,  in  God,  the  condition  of  simplicity, 
far  from  being  its  negation.  We  shall  understand  the  words 
of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas :  "  Unity  and  transcendent  plu- 
rality are  identical ;  "  and  those  of  Saint  Hilary  of  Poitiers : 
"  Our  God  is  not  solitary,  although  he  is  one."  We  shall 
understand  the  truth  of  these  comparisons  and  conceptions, 
and  above  all,  their  insufficiency ;  and  we  shall  know  the 
incomprehensibility  of  the  mystery. 

And  while  still  sounding  the  immeasurable  depth  of  the 
mystery  by  contemplation  and  study,  we  shall  tend  above 
all  to  adore  and  worshipfully  imitate  it.  We  shall  see  in  it 
the  source  of  all  knowledge,  of  all  virtue,  life  itself,  and 
immortality.  We  have  weighed  all  these  words  thoroughly. 
We  shall  see  therein  the  heart  of  Christianity,  the  last 
wish  of  Christ :  "  May  they  be  one,  0  my  Father,  even  as 
we  are  one."  We  shall  see  therein  both  the  perfection  of 
every  soul,  and  the  organization  of  the  world  to  come  and 
of  the  ideal  society  of  heaven,  —  which  will  be,  according  to 
the  Saviour's  prayer,  a  plurality  of  persons  in  one. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   INFINITESIMAL   PEOCESS. 
I. 

WE  have  completed  the  demonstration  of  the  existence 
of  God,  of  God  characterized  by  his  attributes.  But, 
as  we  have  already  declared,  two  fundamental  points  still 
await  development,  which  will  add  singularly  to  the  force 
of  this  demonstration. 

In  the  first  place  we  shall  show,  as  we  have  repeatedly 
asserted  in  the  foregoing  pages,  that  the  demonstration  of 
the  existence  of  God,  which  is  merely  the  application  to  its 
proper  object  of  one  of  the  two  essential  processes  of  reason, 
is  as  rigorous  as  a  genuine  mathematical  demonstration,  as 
Descartes  and  Leibnitz  also  affirm ;  and  that  it  is  thus  rigor- 
ous because  it  is  nothing  else  than  one  of  the  two  processes 
of  geometry  which  correspond  to  the  two  general  processes 
of  reason.  It  is  the  infinitesimal  process  applied,  not  to  the 
abstract  geometrical  infinite,  but  to  the  substantial  infinite, 
which  is  God. 

In  the  second  place,  we  shall  show  that  contemporary 
atheism,  which  is  very  consistent  and  very  learned,  is  a 
demonstration  ad  absurdum  of  the  existence  of  God,  and 
that  it  is  merely  the  chief  process  of  reason  reversed,  and  the 
infinitesimal  geometrical  process  applied  the  wrong  way. 

And  first,  as  for  the  primary  point,  Descartes  lays  great 
stress  upon  the  mathematical  precision  of  the  demonstration 
of  the  existence  of  God.  "  When  I  think  of  it  attentively," 
he  says,  "  I  clearly  find  that  God's  existence  can  no  more  be 
separated  from  his  essence  than  the  equality  of  its  three 


328  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

angles  to  two  right  angles  can  be  separated  from  the  essence 
of  a  right-angled  triangle."  Elsewhere  he  says :  "  It  is 
certain  that  I  no  less  find  in  my  consciousness  the  idea  of 
a  supremely  perfect  being  than  that  of  any  figure  or  number 
whatsoever  ;  and  I  know  no  less  plainly  and  distinctly  that 
an  eternal  and  actual  existence  belongs  to  his  nature  than  I 
know  that  all  which  I  can  demonstrate  of  any  figure  or  any 
number  veritably  belongs  to  the  nature  of  that  figure  or 
number :  and  therefore  .  .  .  the  existence  of  God  must  pass 
in  my  mind  as  being  a  truth  no  less  certain  than  I  have 
hitherto  esteemed  all  mathematical  truths  to  be." 

Thus  thought  Descartes.  Leibnitz,  as  we  have  seen, 
thought  the  same.  The  two  greatest  mathematicians  whom 
the  world  has  known  assert  that  the  proof  of  God's  exist- 
ence is  as  rigorous  as  any  mathematical  proof. 

Now,  not  only  is  the  truth  of  God's  existence,  regarded 
from  a  particular  point  of  view,  of  the  same  order  as  mathe- 
matical truths,  although  it  is  also  experimental  at  the  same 
time  that  it  is  ideal,  —  it  is,  I  say,  of  that  order,  in  that  it  is 
a  necessary  idea  which  cannot  but  be  true,  since  God  is  the 
Being  whose  essence  implies  existence,  as  the  essence  of  the 
triangle  implies  the  equality  of  the  three  angles  to  two  right 
angles.  Not  only  is  this  so,  but  we  shall  show  besides,  as  we 
have  just  declared,  that  the  proof  of  God's  existence,  as  men 
practise  it  commonly,  poetically,  and  as  true  philosophers  have 
developed  it,  is  no  other  than  a  universal  process,  of  which  the 
pre-eminent  mathematical  process  —  the  infinitesimal  process 
of  Leibnitz — is  an  individual  case  and  a  special  application. 

"Metaphysics,  harmony,  geometry,  and  morality,"  says 
Leibnitz,  "  exist  everywhere."  Therefore,  according  to  Leib- 
nitz, there  is  geometry  in  metaphysics,  or  rather  there  is  a 
sort  of  universal  mathematics,  for  which  Descartes  and  Leib- 
nitz sought,  and  the  bases  of  which  Leibnitz  discovered.  It 
is  undoubtedly  this  idea  which  he  pursued  in  his  treatise  en- 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  329 

titled,  De  Scientia  infiniti.  Moreover,  the  whole  seventeenth 
century  is  full  of  this  idea  of  the  infinite.  Theology,  meta- 
physics, mathematics,  even  the  ascetic  treatises  of  that  period 
are  full  of  it.  All  the  thinkers  of  that  time  are  in  pursuit  of 
it.  Pascal,  Ferinat,  Wallis,  Descartes,  dwell  upon  it.  But 
Leibnitz,  more  than  the  rest,  applies  it  to  mathematics  by  the 
marvellous  invention  of  the  infinitesimal  calculus,  —  a  discov- 
ery which  transfigures  that  science,  and  gives  it  the  greatest 
impulse  it  ever  received  or  ever  can  receive. 

Let  us  see  what  the  infinitesimal  process  of  Leibnitz  is. 
The  idea  is  comprehensible  without  any  special  knowledge. 

Mathematics  treats  of  forms,  motions,  velocities,  —  that  is, 
of  the  effects  of  force  acting  in  space  and  time. 

Now,  the  difficulty  in  mathematical  research,  "  that  is,  in 
research  into  forms  and  motions,  comes,"  as  Lacroix  says, 
"  from  the  fact  that  there  is  continuity  in  lines  and  velocities." 

And,  in  fact,  how  are  we  to  reach  continuity  ?  How  can 
we  grasp,  in  forms  or  motions,  the  passage  from  one  point  to 
the  following  one  ?  What  is  the  point  which  follows  another 
point  ?  Is  it  the  same  point,  or  are  there  two  points  ?  If  it 
be  the  same  point,  what  can  we  say  of  the  passage  or  relation 
of  the  one  to  the  other  ?  If  it  be  another  point  divided  by 
space,  however  small  the  interval  may  be,  it  is  not  the  fol- 
lowing point ;  for  between  any  two  points,  divided  by  an  in- 
terval, there  is  always  a  space  infinitely  divisible,  —  that  is  to 
say,  capable  of  containing  as  many  geometrical  points  as  we 
like.  This  question  is  a  labyrinth  in  which  we  are  soon  lost. 
Hence  that  book,  mentioned  by  Leibnitz,  entitled,  Labyrinthus 
de  compositione  continui.  And  yet,  in  the  analysis  of  forms 
and  motions,  we  must  be  familiar  with  the  law  of  transition 
from  one  point  to  the  succeeding  point,  or  else  the  continuity 
escapes  us.  But  two  consecutive  points  coincide,  otherwise 
there  would  instantly  be"  an  infinity  between  the  two.  We 
must  therefore  analyze  and  find  the  relation  between  two 


330  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

contiguous  points,  distinct,  although  coincident,  and  grasp  the 
law  of  transition  from  one  to  the  other.  We  must  analyze 
the  indivisible,  according  to  the  expression  of  Leibnitz,  who 
called  his  calculus,  "  the  analysis  of  indivisibles  (analysis  in- 
divisibilium)"  But  this  analysis  evidently  issued  from  the 
analysis  of  finite  quantities,  and  entered  into  infinity,  —  into 
the  infinitely  great  and  infinitely  little,  those  two  things  which 
Leibnitz  calls  "  the  two  extremes  of  quantity  considered  aside 
from  quantity  (extremitates  quantitatis  non  inclusce  sed  se- 
clusce)"  One  enters  upon  the  indivisible  or  infinitely  small 
in  finding  the  relation  between  two  coincident  points,  and 
enters  alike  upon  the  infinitely  great  and  infinitely  small 
in  considering  curves  as  polygons  with  an  infinite  number 
of  infinitely  small  sides.  Hence  Leibnitz  also  calls  his 
analysis:  "An  analysis  of  indivisibles  or  infinites  (Analy* 
sis  indivisibilium  seu  infinitorum)"  It  is  essential,  in  a 
word,  to  posit  at  the  base  of  the  calculus  the  idea  of  the 
two  actual  infinites, —  the  infinitely  great  and  the  infinitely 
little,  —  an  idea  without  which,  Pascal  says,  no  one  can  be  a 
geometrician ;  and  this  double  geometrical  infinite  must  be 
considered  as  actually  existing,  if  we  would  grasp  the  essence 
of  forms  and  motions.  Hence  Leibnitz  really  conceives  of 
continuity.  He  conceives  of  two  contiguous  points  distinct 
in  their  essence  although  coincident  in  space. 

This  is  not  all.  How  are  we  to  grasp  the  relation  of  these 
two  points  ?  Thus.  By  starting  from  the  relation  of  two 
points  considered  as  separated  by  a  finite  distance.  By  the 
ordinary  geometry  of  finite  quantities,  we  find  the  relation 
between  two  separate  points ;  we  then  assert  that  by  annul- 
ling the  distance  between  the  two  points,  that  is,  by  passing 
from  the  finite  to  the  infinite  by  annihilating  the  interval, 
the  obstacle  to  continuity,  the  essence  of  the  relation  re- 
mains, although  it  loses  a  variable  part  depending  on  the 
greater  or  less  distance  between  the  points,  when  they  were 
separated  by  space. 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  331 

Thus,  while  the  ordinary  analysis  of  finite  quantities  could 
not  attain  continuity,  or  the  essence  of  the  relation  between 
the  points,  but  merely  attained,  between  two  given  points 
divided  by  a  definite  interval,  a  particular  relation  constantly 
differing  according  to  the  position  and  distance  of  the  given 
points,  the  infinitesimal  analysis  finds  the  relation  between 
any  two  contiguous  points  an  invariable  relation,  always 
identical  for  the  infinite  series  of  all  points  of  the  given  curve 
and  for  any  curve  of  the  same  sort.  This  is  what  is  called 
the  law  of  the  increase  of  magnitudes,  anterior  to  every  quan- 
tity of  increase.  It  is  the  very  law  of  the  generation  of 
forms  of  a  given  kind.  We  advance,  by  the  infinitesimal 
process,  from  finite  magnitude  to  infinite  magnitude,  —  that 
is,  to  geometrical  immensity  in  its  infinite  wealth  and  its 
absolute  continuity.  We  attain  immensity  itself,  —  abstract 
immensity,  not  vague  and  indeterminate  immensity,  but 
intelligible  immensity,  full  of  its  eternal  laws,  of  the  laws 
and  ideas  of  all  forms. 

The  infinitesimal  process  destroys  the  finite  magnitude  of 
forms,  to  obtain  the  laws  and  essences  of  forms  realizable  by 
magnitude.  It  suppresses  the  variable  quantity,  but  pre- 
serves the  immutable  essence.  Dimensions  vanish,  but  the 
relations  of  dimensions  remain,  —  relations  which  are  invari- 
able for  every  sort  of  conceivable  forms. 

To  suppress  the  variable  and  retain  the  necessary  in 
forms ;  to  bring  the  multitude  of  points  back  to  simplicity, 
in  order  to  destroy  their  accidental  relations  without  destroy- 
ing their  essential  relations;  to  return  to  the  infinite  by 
gathering  magnitude  and  dimension  into  a  single  point, 
wherein  subsists  and  wherein  is  discovered  the  law  of  gener- 
ation for  these  multitudes,  —  such  is  the  infinitesimal  calculus. 
It  is,  briefly,  if  we  may  venture  to  say  so,  a  re-ascent  to  the 
mathematical  laws  and  forms  as  they  exist  eternally  in  God, 
independent  of  all  size  and  all  dimension. 


332  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

Thus  the  infinitesimal  mathematical  process,  like  the 
Platonic  and  Cartesian  demonstration  of  the  existence  of 
God,  moves  from  finite  to  infinite,  from  contingent  to  neces- 
sary, from  variable  to  eternal,  from  the  individual  to  the 
universal;1  and  it  proceeds  in  precisely  the  same  manner, 
effacing  all  the  limits  of  contingence  and  variation,  disengag- 
ing the  essence  in  particular  realities,  reducing  accident  to 
zero,  and  raising  the  essential  to  infinity. 

Therefore  the  infinitesimal  process  of  mathematics  is  pre- 
cisely an  instance  and  particular  application  of  a  universal, 
fundamental  process,  by  which  the  human  mind  springs, 
with  an  action  as  sublime  and  as  certain  as  it  is  simple,  from 
any  finite  postulate  to  the  infinite. 

The  same  general  process  is  applicable  to  the  relation  of 
finite  to  infinite,  whether  in  geometry  or  in  metaphysics. 
Now,  applied  to  geometry,  it  produces  marvels,  and  what  it 
gives  us  is  infallibly  sure :  is  it  possible  that  when  applied 
to  metaphysics  it  should  produce  only  error? 

I  ask  if  it  be  rational  to  admit  that  a  process  innate  in 
the  human  mind,  actually  practised,  implicitly  or  explicitly, 
by  all  men;  a  process  which  is  the  foundation  of  poetry, 
that  flower  of  truth  ;  a  process  which  all  philosophers  of  the 
first  rank  have  perceived  or  described  more  or  less  clearly, 
and  which,  lastly,  by  the  progress  of  science,  being  also  ap- 
plied to  geometry,2  there  reveals,  by  most  amazing  discove- 
ries, the  rigor  of  its  certainty  and  the  grandeur  of  its  power,  — 
I  ask,  I  say,  if  it  be  permissible  to  admit  that  such  a  method 
is  true  only  in  geometry,  and  has  been  wrongly  applied,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  world,  by  common-sense,  by  poetry,  by 

1  It  is  plain  that  in  mathematics  the  mind  does  not  leave  the  abstract;  it 
moves  from  the  abstract  finite  to  the  abstract  infinite. 

2  To  tell  the   truth,  the  process  has  been  applied  to  geometry  since  the 
beginning  of  science,  by  the  notion  of  limits  and  that  of  infinitely  littles,  but 
it  has  only  entered  into  it  fully  and  methodically  since  the  time  of  Leibnitz 
and  Newton. 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  333 

philosophy,  to  the  demonstration  and  study  of  the  living 
infinite  ?  This  cannot  be.  There  is  necessarily  solidarity 
between  the  two  applications  of  the  process,  and  its  geomet- 
rical certainty  confirms  its  metaphysical  certainty. 

The  identity  of  the  geometrical  infinitesimal  process  with 
the  fundamental  process  of  the  rational  life  by  which  God  is 
demonstrated,  has  never  been  established.  We  state  for  the 
first  time  explicitly  and  directly  this  identity,1  to  the  study 
of  which  we  devote  a  part  of  our  Treatise  on  Logic ;  and  we 
there  demonstrate  what  Descartes  and  Leibnitz  assert  with- 
out proving  it,  —  namely,  that  the  proof  of  God's  existence 
has  a  mathematical  validity.  At  the  same  time  we  intro- 
duce in  theoretical  logic  the  clearer  knowledge  of  a  truth 
which  is  not  sufficiently  developed  therein,  —  namely,  that 
reason  has  two  exact  processes,  and  not  one  only ;  that  syllo- 
gism is  not  the  only  form  of  reasoning ;  that  there  is  another 
radically  different  from  the  first,  but  equally  sure  ;  and  that 
these  two  logical  processes  correspond  to  the  two  methods  of 
geometry,  —  the  algebraic  deductive  method  by  means  of  iden- 
tity, and  the  infinitesimal  method,  which  gives  the  infinite  by 
starting  from  the  finite.  We  believe  that  Leibnitz  knew 
this,  but  he  neither  said  so  clearly,  nor  demonstrated  it.  He 
insinuated  something  of  it,  but  he  was  not  understood.  Per- 
haps this  was  what  he  was  reserving  for  development  in  his 
work  on  "  The  Science  of  the  Infinite." 

The  geometrical  infinitesimal  process,  discovered  as  a  me- 
thodical form  of  calculus  by  that  seventeenth  century  which 

1  Wallis,  Newton,  and  above  all,  Leibnitz,  have  said  what  is  equivalent  to 
this,  but  in  terms  which  are  not  sufficiently  explicit.  I  have  answered  the 
objections  made  to  me  on  this  point,  in  an  Introduction  to  my  Logic,  which 
seems  to  me  to  close  the  discussion.  Allow  me  to  say  that  the  objections  were, 
all  and  always,  based  upon  the  strangest  of  misunderstandings,  —  misunder- 
standings certainly  not  justified  by  the  sum  total  of  my  statement,  but  to 
which  I  necessarily  gave  occasion  by  some  obscure  detail  or  some  ill-defined 
word.  In  later  editions,  particularly  in  the  latest  one,  I  have  tried  to  correct 
these  blemishes. 


334  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

was  the  father  of  sciences,  transfigured  mathematics,  an  infal- 
lible science,  and  made  it  a  power  and  a  glory.  This  process 
is  verified  by  its  geometrical  and  mechanical  applications.  It 
attains  laws  and  forms  which  the  analysis  of  finite  quantities 
can  in  no  way  reach ;  it  solves  with  incomparable  ease  prob- 
lems which  the  analysis  of  finite  quantities  solves  with  diffi- 
culty; it  is  a  new  and  transcendent  method  in  all  the 
significance  and  truth  of  the  word. 

Whence  we  may  conclude,  it  seems  to  me,  that  this  same 
process,  when  philosophy  at  last  comprehends  its  universality, 
reach,  and  precision,  will  transform  philosophy  as  it  has 
transformed  mathematics  ;  will  answer  questions  which  long 
courses  of  deductive  reasoning  were  unable  to  answer ;  and 
will  make  quick  and  easy,  even  for  the  simplest  minds,  the 
solution  of  problems  which  the  greatest  geniuses  have  solved 
with  difficulty. 

I  allude  to  that  fundamental  operation  of  the  rational  life, 
that  act  of  sovereign  reason,  which  from  every  finite  postu- 
late springs  to  the  infinite  as  the  actual  source  and  eternal 
model  of  the  finite  postulate  that  we  see;  which  asserts 
the  actual,  infinite  existence  of  all  being,  all  beauty,  all 
power,  and  all  goodness  of  which  we  see  any  trace ;  which 
says,  in  its  consciousness  of  being,  of  life,  and  of  limitations : 
Remove  these  limitations ;  you  have  an  infinite  being,  actually 
and  infinitely  living ;  —  which  says  :  "  I  know  something, 
therefore  an  infinite  intelligence  exists ;  I  love,  therefore  infi- 
nite love  exists  ;  I  see  limited  space,  transitory  time,  therefore 
infinite  extension  and  eternity  exist;  there  are  traces  of 
beauty,  therefore  there  is  a  supreme  beauty  ;  there  are  traces 
of  happiness,  therefore  there  is  a  complete  happiness  and  a 
felicity  without  bounds."  Yes,  these  simple,  common-place 
arguments,  implicitly  employed  by  all  good  hearts  and  right 
minds  from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  make  up  a  very  sim- 
ple, very  potent  and  exact  method,  which  scientists  and 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  335 

sages,  although  glimpsing  at  it,  have  not  thus  far  ventured 
to  apply,  for  the  very  reason  that  it  seemed  to  them  at  once 
too  potent  and  too  simple,  I  repeat  that  this  infinitesimal 
method,  identical  with  the  corresponding  mathematical  pro- 
cess which  is  but  a  special  application  of  it,  will  renew 
Philosophy  whenever  Philosophy  at  last  chooses  to  take 
possession  of  it  and  boldly  apply  it  in  its  fulness. 

II. 

We  said  in  the  beginning  of  this  Theodicy  that  if  there 
be  a  genuine  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  that  proof  must 
correspond  to  some  common,  daily,  essential,  and  funda- 
mental process  of  human  reason ;  we  have  shown  in  the 
soul  and  human  mind  a  universal  tendency,  which,  ever 
desirous  to  enlarge,  embellish,  and  raise  to  the  infinite  every 
trace  of  being,  beauty,  and  goodness  presented  by  the  world, 
rises  to  God  by  this  poetic  process,  which  is  but  the  impulse 
of  reason.  Most  minds,  even  the  simplest,  reach  God  by 
this  way.  We  have  recognized  that  the  proofs  of  God's  ex- 
istence given  by  true  philosophers,  from  Plato  to  Descartes, 
are  nothing  but  this  common  method  translated  into  philo- 
sophic language.  We  have  explained  the  essence  of  this 
process ;  we  have  asserted  and  shown,  with  Descartes  and 
Leibnitz,  that  this  proof  is  as  rigorous  as  any  mathematical 
proof  ;  and  lastly,  we  have  shown  that  this  vital  and  funda- 
mental process  of  the  human  mind  is  a  universal  process, 
of  which  the  infinitesimal  mathematical  process  is  merely 
a  special  application. 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  understand  how,  if  it  be  true 
that  the  demonstration  of  the  existence  of  God  be  the  sim- 
plest and  most  spontaneous  as  well  as  the  grandest  and  most 
essential  of  the  acts  of  reason  ;  if  it  be  true  that  philosophy 
has  described,  analyzed,  and  argued  it  with  full  details  and  pre- 


336  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

cision,  and  that  this  demonstration  has  now  clearly  acquired 
mathematical  certainty, — it  remains,  we  say,  for  us  to  under- 
stand how  there  can  still  be  atheists,  how  there  always  will 
be,  and  how  there  is,  at  the  present  day,  a  school  of  atheism 
which  is  far  more  scientific  than  the  old-fashioned  atheism. 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  atheists  because  man  is  a  free 
agent,  and  because  there  are  wicked  men. 

In  fact,  the  proof  of  God's  existence  is  not  only  the  act 
and  fundamental  process  of  the  rational  life,  it  is  also  the 
act  and  fundamental  process  of  the  moral  and  practical  life. 
That  is  to  say,  the  operation  of  the  mind  which  proves  God 
answers  to  a  moral  act  of  the  free  will  which  loves  and 
adores  God.  These  two  acts  answer  to  each  other  in  such 
fashion  that  the  moral  act  is  the  source,  the  point  of  sup- 
port, the  cause,  of  the  rational  act.  For  if  the  will  refuse 
its  action,  reason  cannot  complete  its  own.  The  mind,  when 
the  heart  does  not  adore  God,  cannot  alone  effect  the  true 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  It  sees  the  reasons  for  it 
if  they  be  pointed  out,  but  does  not  believe  them.  It  can 
repeat  the  lesson,  if  it  choose  to  be  a  hypocrite,  but  it  has 
no  faith  in  God ;  and  we  find  that  the  demonstration  is  only 
an  argument  without  a  basis,  which,  to  a  dry,  abstract  spirit, 
far  removed  from  love  and  spontaneous  worship,  does  not 
imply  the  reality  of  God's  existence,  but  only  the  abstract 
idea  of  God. 

So  that,  among  men,  those  who  reach  God  through  love 
may  reach  him  through  reason  ;  those  who  do  not  reach  him 
through  love  can  only  reach  him  through  reason  in  seeming, 
or  actually  turn  their  reason  against  him  :  I  do  not  say  that 
they  do  not  at  the  same  time  turn  reason  against  itself, 
but  they  turn  their  reason  against  God,  and  deny  him  in 
their  intelligence  because  they  have  denied  him  in  their 
affection. 

Let  us  study  more  in  detail  the  origin  of  atheism. 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  337 

To  do  this,  we  must  first  recall  the  proof  of  the  existence 
of  God. 

We  consider  the  beings  who  surround  us,  we  contemplate 
the  world  and  our  soul.  We  see  therein  being  and  life, 
although  limited;  traces  of  beauty  and  goodness,  mingled 
with  contrasts  and  changes.  But  the  imperfect  goodness 
of  this  world  leads  us  to  comprehend  infinite  goodness ;  its 
borrowed  beauty,  absolute  beauty.  For  this  world  speaks 
and  proclaims  God.  This  is  what  the  soul  of  every  man 
should  comprehend  in  presence  of  this  world,  and  such  is 
the  duty  of  his  reason. 

The  duty  of  reason  is  to  conceive  the  infinite  through 
every  trace  of  being,  beauty,  and  goodness  shown  to  us  by 
creatures ;  and  because  they  also  everywhere  show  us  limita- 
tions, void,  evil,  and  imperfection,  it  is  the  duty  of  reason, 
as  well  as  of  will,  to  prevent  us  from  pausing  at  knowledge' 
or  love  in  limited  beings.  To  go  beyond  them,  to  seek  the 
infinitely  perfect  being,  manifestly  different  from  all  crea- 
tures, although  evidently  proclaimed  by  each,  —  such  is  our 
duty. 

But  it  is  here  that  men  part,  and  either  advance  towards 
God  or  hold  aloof  from  him. 

Who  has  not  often  hesitated  before  the  complex  vision 
of  things  ?  Now,  the  order  and  beauty  of  the  world  compel 
the  soul  to  admiration,  praise,  hope,  and  faith  in  that  invisi- 
ble being  whom  all  things  proclaim  and  reveal.  Again,  the 
disorder  and  evil,  the  misery  and  brevity,  of  the  present, 
above  all,  death,  trouble  us,  sadden  us,  drive  us  to  distrust, 
complaint,  and  despair.  In  this  hesitation,  in  this  trial  of 
reason  and  will,  some,  upheld  by  the  legitimate  instinct  of 
human  nature,  —  or,  to  speak  better,  by  the  contact  of  God 
with  the  root  of  the  soul,  —  maintain  within  them  their 
ideal,  faith  in  the  infinite  perfection,  substantial,  actual,  and 
living.  Others,  despite  the  horror  felt  by  their  soul  and 

22 


338  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

the  remorse  of  their  reason,  allow  their  ideal  to  be  smothered 
by  the  sight  of  chance,  their  faith  by  the  sight  of  obstacle, 
and,  in  answer  to  doubt,  choose  negation.  These  are  the 
two  moral  and  intellectual  races  who  divide  the  world. 
There  are  minds  and  hearts  which  affirm,  there  are  others 
which  deny.  Herein  lies  the  whole  question :  God  or  not ; 
yes  or  no. 

Consider  well  that  the  choice  is  free.  We  are,  by  choice 
and  freely,  for  God  or  against  God. 

The  choice  between  these  two  paths  is  offered  to  every 
man,  not  only  in  his  youth,  but  at  every  point  in  life.  Every 
movement  of  our  consciousness,  every  impression  received 
from  our  fellow-creatures,  may  and  should  re  echo  from  our- 
selves and  our  fellow-creatures  back  to  God,  if,  repelling  and 
scorning  the  vanity,  imperfection,  and  present  misery  of 
things  and  of  ourselves,  a  vigorous  love  of  good  —  that  is, 
virtue  —  lifts  our  soul  towards  the  sovereign  Good,  the 
supreme  perfection,  transporting  us  from  the  finite  to  the 
infinite,  from  the  transitory  to  the  eternal.  This  is  what 
Socrates  meant  by  philosophizing,  when  he  said :  "  To  philo- 
sophize is  to  learn  to  die ; "  it  is  to  learn  to  sacrifice  acci- 
dental and  transitory  impressions,  limited  sensations,  finite 
and  transitory  joys,  to  attain  the  substance  itself  of  which 
these  are  the  shadows.  This  progress  towards  the  infinite 
by  the  sacrifice  of  the  finite  is  the  right  path,  —  the  path 
of  goodness  and  truth. 

But  if  all  th3  moments  of  consciousness,  if  all  the  im- 
pressions received  from  our  fellow-creatures,  far  from  re- 
echoing to  God  in  our  intelligence  and  affection,  wrap  us  in 
selfishness  and  sensuality ;  if  every  pleasure  and  every  pain 
nail  us  —  to  use  Plato's  vigorous  expression  —  to  the  present 
and  accidental  point  of  life ;  if,  far  from  raising  us  to  the 
infinite  and  the  immense,  the  present  instant  fixes  us  upon 
a  point  of  the  finite  ;  if  it  not  only  detach  us  from  the  con- 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  339 

sciousness  of  God,  but  also  from  full  consciousness  of  our- 
selves, from  entire  possession  of  our  soul  which  is  greater 
than  the  world,  and  reduce  us  to  the  proportions  of  a  creature 
which  is  but  a  mere  detail  in  the  world,  —  this  degradation, 
which  can  only  occur  because  we  freely  prefer  the  possession 
of  self  to  that  of  God,  and  the  external  possession  of  the  senses 
to  the  full  and  entire  possession  of  self,  sensuality  to  reason, 
pleasure  to  virtue  and  freedom,  —  this  continuous  descent 
towards  the  lower,  is  clearly  the  false  path,  the  path  of 
evil  and  of  error. 

We  are  not  sufficiently  alive  to  the  fact  that  man  ascends 
or  descends  the  ladder  of  life,  as  he  may  prefer,  at  every 
point  in  life.  He  tends,  by  each  of  his  unbiassed  actions, 
towards  fulness  of  life  or  vacuity  of  life,  —  that  is,  towards 
an  actual  being  more  complete  or  more  empty.  We  ap- 
proach God,  and  we  are  more;  we  depart  from  him,  and 
we  are  less.  And  this  is  the  whole  mystery  of  life,  —  to 
advance  towards  God,  or  to  depart  from  him.  We  know  not 
the  perpetual  and  universal  history  of  the  world  and  of 
every  soul.  Meantime,  the  tremendous  drama  does  not 
pause.  We  steadily  advance  either  towards  God  or  towards 
nonentity.  "The  wicked  man  sinks  towards  nothingness," 
says  the  holy  Scripture. 

This  is  why  there  are  atheists.1 

Assuredly  there  are  fearful  moments  for  the  soul,  when, 
having  sunk  in  some  sort  to  a  lower  state  of  being,  —  that 
is,  to  an  enfeebled  vitality,  —  it  is  tempted  to  absolute 
incredulity  ;  conscious  of  its  degradation  and  decay,  it  is 
tempted  to  say,  There  is  nothing  but  an  empty  void  ;  there 
is  nothing,  there  is  no  God.  Because  it  is  moving  towards 

1  Yet,  let  us  not  forget,  there  are  men  who  are  mental,  bnt  not  \vilful 
atheists,  as  there  are  Christians  who  have  faith,  dead  faith,  but  have  no 
love.  So,  too,  it  is  very  different  to  cherish  a  dead  atheism,  and  to  cherish 
atheism  as  the  actual  principle  of  life. 


340  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

lesser  being,  it  begins  to  believe  in  nonentity ;  just  as,  in 
the  luminous  moments  of  increasing  life,  the  soul,  conscious 
of  growth  and  progress,  conceives  of  being  more  and  more, 
trembles  with  joy,  and  leaps  by  a  mighty  act  of  faith  to  the 
immediate  certainty  and  absolute  assertion  of  Being,  —  that 
is,  infinite  Being. 

So  that,  in  reality,  the  mystery  of  good  and  evil,  of  truth 
and  error,  consists  in  attaining,  by  free  choice,  to  one  of 
these  extremes,  to  one  of  these  two  prime  decisions,  implicit 
universals,  which  are  the  foundation  of  every  mind :  Being 
is,  or  else  Being  is  not,  —  a  living,  intimate,  and  incarnate 
double  proposition,  which  every  soul  asserts  at  will  and 
bears  in  its  innermost  core ;  of  which  the  one,  produced  by 
free  love  of  the  supreme  Good,  is  the  very  formula  of  evi- 
dence, Being  is  ;  the  other,  produced  by  that  distaste  for  the 
supreme  Good  and  that  habitual  choice  of  the  lesser,  which 
result  from  egoism,  is  the  general  formula  of  the  absurd,  — 
that  is,  the  most  concise  and  most  absolute  of  all  contradic- 
tory propositions,  Being  is  not. 

Once  more,  we  have  the  two  human  tendencies,  good  and 
evil,  truth  and  error ;  there  are  minds  which  affirm,  because 
they  love ;  there  are  minds  which  deny,  because  they  do  not 
love :  absolute  negation  or  absolute  affirmation,  Being  or 
non-Being,  God  or  no  God,  all  or  nothing. 

Hence  the  noble  words  of  Plato,  which  Leibnitz  holds  to 
be  so  true :  "  The  philosopher  and  the  sophist  move  in  op- 
posite directions :  one  advances  towafds  being,  the  other 
towards  nothing ;  and  while  the  philosopher  is  dazzled  by 
the  too  great  clarity  of  his  object,  the  sophist,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  blinded  by  the  darkness  of  his." 

On  this  subject  Leibnitz  reports  that  the  sophist  Foe  at 
the  close  of  his  life  said  to  his  disciples :  "  This  is  the  basis 
of  all  things, —  there  is  nothing  ;  nonentity  is  the  principle 
of  all  things."  We  know  that  India  is  full  of  this  insensate 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  341 

nihilism.  Greek  sophists,  Gorgias  amcmg  others,  taught  it ; 
Plotinus  renewed  it ;  and  in  our  day  a  whole  school  of  phi- 
losophy teaches  it. 

Thus  there  are  atheists  ;  there  have  been  such  in  all  ages  ; 
there  will  always  be  such,  because  evil  plants  radical  incre- 
dulity and  absolute  negation  in  perverse  hearts.  Atheism, 
says  Plato,  is  a  disease  of  the  soul  before  it  is  an  error  of 
the  mind. 

This  is  why  there  is  a  modem  school  of  atheism  more 
scientific  than  the  ancient  one. 

It  is  because,  as  practical  atheism  is  and  can  be  nothing 
but  the  will  itself  directed  in  a  sense  contrary  to  the  moral 
laws,  so  speculative  atheism  is  only  the  reason  directed  in  a 
sense  contrary  to  the  laws  of  logic;  whence  results  this 
strange  consequence,  that  in  philosophy  the  theory  of  athe- 
ism is  nothing  but  the  demonstration  of  the  existence  of  God 
taken  inversely.  The  actual  demonstration  of  the  existence 
of  God  being  mathematically  exact,  and  having  clearly  be- 
come so  by  the  labors  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  follows 
that  the  actual  theory  of  atheism,  which  is  that  same  demon- 
stration reversed,  is  in  a  certain  sense  exact,  and,  I  might 
even  say,  true,  —  true,  in  that  it  entails  at  the  close  of  the 
argument  a  manifest  absurdity ;  which  must  be  so,  since  a 
correct  train  of  reasoning  must  reduce  to  an  absurdity  the 
hypothesis  that  there  is  no  God. 

Contemporary  atheism  proceeds  as  follows.  To  the  sight 
of  finite  beings,  who  only  exist  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  not 
beyond  it,  to  the  sight  of  created  perfections  and  their  limita- 
tions, it  applies  in  an  inverse  sense  the  process  which  rises  to 
God.  Instead  of  destroying  the  limitation  and  raising  the 
perfections  to  the  infinite,  it  destroys  the  perfections  and 
raises  the  limitation  to  the  infinite ;  and  it  thus  succeeds  in 
asserting  that  absolute  nonentity  exists,  and  that  there  is 
no  other  absolute  being  than  this  nothingness. 


342  GUIDE  TO  TEE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

Whence  it  follows  that  "  Being  and  Nothing  are  iden- 
tical," or  that  "  Being  is  Nothing."  l  These  two  propositions 
exist  textually  in  Hegel's  works,  and  he  constantly  repeats 
them.  They  are,  as  we  see,  the  statement  of  absolute  ab- 
surdity. This  is  inevitable.  The  process  which,  applied 
correctly,  gives  us  truth  itself,  must  produce  pure  absurdity 
when  applied  in  a  contrary  sense. 

Thus  we  have  in  contemporary  atheism  a  demonstration, 
by  means  of  the  reductio  ad  absurdum,  of  the  existence 
of  God. 

But  what  is  truly  monstrous,  and  what  is  peculiar  to  the 
present  school  of  atheists,  is  that  it  clings  with  desperate 
determination  to  this  radical  absurdity,  and  intrenches  itself 
in  it.  It  asserts  that  the  formula,  "  Being  is  nothing,"  is  the 
principle  of  philosophy,  and  that,  starting  from  this  prin- 
ciple, logic  must  be  transformed.  "  The  time  has  come," 
says  Hegel,  "  to  transform  logic ; "  and  this  transformation 
consists  chiefly  in  denying  the  principle  of  contradiction,  — 
that  is,  in  maintaining  that  in  all  things  we  can  and  ought 
to  assert  at  the  same  time  for  and  against,  in  the  same  sense 
and  in  the  same  connection. 

So  that  a  new  system  of  Logic,  absolutely  contradicting 
the  old  one,  has  been  taught  in  Europe  for  the  last  forty 
years,  successfully,  brilliantly,  —  nay,  more,  with  such  raci- 
ness  of  reasoning  that  Logic,  reversed  as  it  is  by  this  school, 
will  come  forth  more  fully  developed  than  it  was,  because 
several  points  hitherto  unknown,  or  undemonstrated,  will  be 
thus  demonstrated  to  absurdity.  This  is  an  important  fact, 
a  solemn  and  critical  moment  in  the  history  of  the  human 
mind.  This  fact,  rich  as  it  is  in  consequences  and  instruc- 
tion, will  be  the  object  of  minute  study  in  our  Treatise  on 
Logic.  We  shall  then  see  how  modern  sophistry,  which 
has  built  up  in  the  nineteenth  century  a  powerful  school 

1  Sein  und  Nichts  1st  dasselbe.  —  Log.,  §  88  (Encyclopaedia). 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  343 

of  atheism,  is  simply  and  precisely  Descartes  turned  wrong 
side  out,  Leibnitz  reversed. 


III. 

Let  us  close  this  first  part  of  the  Treatise  on  the  Knowledge 
of  God. 

We  have  set  forth  the  proofs  of  God's  existence  as  they 
have  been  given  in  all  ages. 

These  proofs  are  distinguished  as  the  cosmological,  psycho- 
logical, and  ontological  proofs,  according  as  our  reason  rises 
to  God  from  the  spectacle  of  nature,  from  the  sight  of  our 
own  soul,  or  from  the  idea  of  God  taken  in  itself.  But  the 
first  two  form  but  one :  it  is  God  known  through  his  acts ; 
so  that  there  are  really,  as  Descartes  says,  but  two  proofs,  — 
that  which  proves  God  through  his  acts,  and  that  which 
proves  him  through  the  mere  idea  which  we  have  of  him. 

But  it  is  clear  that  the  idea  of  God  is  only  obtained  from  his 
acts,  according  to  the  sublime  words  of  Saint  Paul :  "  For  the 
invisible  things  of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are 
clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are  made, 
even  his  eternal  power  and  godhead."  Therefore,  actually, 
there  is  but  one  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  which  may  be 
thus  defined  :  There  is  something,  therefore  God  exists. 

We  have  seen  that  if  we  truly  possess  the  idea  of  God, 
we  possess  the  proof  of  his  existence ;  because  then  the  propo- 
sition, God  is,  is  merely  an  identical  proposition  in  our  eyes, 
as  well  as  in  itself.  Everything,  therefore,  reverts  to  obtain- 
ing the  idea  of  God  through  his  acts. 

We  have  seen  the  process  employed  to  this  end  by  reason, 
and  we  have  also  shown  the  moral  requisite  for  the  exercise 
of  the  process.  The  whole  process,  —  permit  us  to  summa- 
rize once  more,  —  the  entire  proof,  consists  in  rising  from  the 
finite  to  the  infinite  by  the  negation  of  the  limits  of  the 


344  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

finite,  and  in  proceeding  thus  from  everything  to  God,  be- 
cause, according  to  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  everything  exists 
in  God  infinitely,  or  God  is  everything  eminently.  We  apply 
to  the  finite  this  process  of  elimination,  which  gives  us  the 
idea  of  the  infinite ;  that  is,  the  idea  of  God,  which,  so  soon  as 
it  is  obtained,  of  itself  proves  that  God  exists. 

This  process  has  the  precision  of  geometrical  processes, 
since  the  infinitesimal  process  of  geometry  is  itself  but  a 
special  application  of  it  to  the  geometrical  finite  and  infinite. 

But  as  the  exercise  of  this  process  also  implies  a  moral 
requisite,  and  the  process,  exact  in  itself,  may  be  applied,  if 
desired,  in  a  contrary  way,  it  follows  that  there  may  be 
atheists  more  logical  and  more  consistent  than  ever  before. 
It  is  true  that,  by  the  very  power  of  this  admirable  process, 
the  sophists,  who  apply  it  inversely,  are  led  where  they 
should  go,  to  a  manifest  absurdity ;  that  is  to  say,  to  the 
contradictory  proposition,  which  may  be  stated  thus  :  Being 
is  not.  They  proceed  thither,  they  cling  to  this  statement: 
they  assert  and  write  literally :  "  Being  is  nothing  (Sein  und 
NiMs  ist  dasselbe)."  So  that  modern  atheism  is  nothing  but 
a  demonstration  ad  dbsurdum  of  the  existence  of  God,  a 
counter-proof  of  the  direct  demonstration.  Either  there 
never  was  a  demonstration  ad  absurdum,  or  this  is  the 
strongest  which  has  ever  been  given. 

We  have  seen  that  this  magnificent  process  not  only 
proves  the  existence  of  God,  but  at  the  same  time  gives  us 
his  attributes ;  and  that  if  all  these  attributes  may  be  de- 
duced by  way  of  identity  from  the  idea  of  infinite  Being, 
each  of  them  taken  separately,  they  may  also  be  obtained 
directly  and  seen,  as  Saint  Paul  says,  by  the  chief  process  of 
reason,  ill  every  trace  of  beauty  or  goodness  found  in 
created  beings. 

We  must  have  understood  that  this  act  of  the  human  soul 
which  sees  in  nature,  in  the  visible  world,  or  in  the  soul,  God 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  345 

and  his  attributes,  is  the  chief  act,  the  fundamental  process, 
of  the  rational  and  moral  life  ;  it  is  the  pre-eminent  act  of 
reason  and  liberty  combined ;  it  is  a  joint  act  of  intelligence 
and  will,  —  a  simultaneous  work  of  discernment  and  morality ; 
it  is  what  should  be  called  natural  prayer,  the  impulse  of  the 
soul  which  moves  from  everyching  to  God. 

From  this  point  of  view,  there  is  but  a  single  proof  of 
God's  existence.  Everything  is  that  proof.  Every  baing,  be 
it  what  it  may ;  eveiy  action,  be  it  what  it  may,  is  that 
proof. 

Why  can  I  not  make  it  perfectly  clear  ?  How  can  any 
man  fail  to  see  it  for  himself  ?  How  can  any  one  fail  to  see 
that  everything  reveals  God,  that  every  thought  leads  to 
him,  every  sensation  conducts  us  to  him  ?  Why  must  sen- 
suality, which  animalizes  us  and  arrests  in  us,  as  in  animals, 
every  sensation  at  its  first  effects,  without  permitting  them 
to  be  echoed  back  to  the  reason  and  heart ;  why  must  im- 
purity, which  swallows  up  and  profanes  sensation,  to  enjoy 
it ;  the  stupid  habit  of  life  which  ceases  to  gaze  and  to  ad- 
mire ;  that  hateful  education  which  withers  and  destroys  our 
faculties,  instead  of  elevating  and  transfiguring  them ;  that 
narrow,  blind,  abstract,  and  ignorant  rationalism,  which  clips 
the  wings  of  the  soul  from  earliest  infancy,  —  why  must  all 
these  causes  destroy  within  us  the  divine  sense  of  na- 
ture and  life,  and  the  innate  germs  of  the  sacred  poetry 
which  sees  God  in  all  things  ?  If  souls  were  less  dead,  all 
nature  would  lift  us  to  the  knowledge  of  God,  to  admiration, 
adoration,  love  !  Every  impression  would  be  echoed  back  in 
the  mind  to  God. 

Touch  any  material  body,  be  it  only  a  stone.  I  say  that 
this  contact,  in  a  pure  and  contemplative  man,  is  echoed 
back  through  the  body,  the  senses,  the  mind  and  soul,  to 
God :  the  soul  is  conscious  of  Being,  and,  in  Being,  instantly 
of  the  Infinite.  Yes,  at  the  touch  of  wood  or  stone,  the  soul 


346  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

should  naturally  exclaim:  He,  God!  "Yes,"  says  Bossuet, 
"every  time  that  we  use  our  body  to  move  in  whatsoever 
fashion,  we  should  always  feel  God  present."  The  soul 
should  thus  mount,  by  wondrous  undulations  far  swifter  than 
those  of  light,  from  world  to  world,  from  the  world  of  the 
body  to  that  of  the  soul,  and  from  that  of  the  soul  to  God, 
from  the  body,  from  this  stone  which  it  feels,  —  which  it 
feels  to  be  neither  God  nor  a  free  or  rational  mind,  to  the 
intelligent  being  which  is  itself,  and  from  this  free  and  intel- 
ligent but  still  imperfect  world  to  perfect  and  infinite  being. 

Such  is  the  legitimate  margin  of  a  sensation,  of  any  im- 
pression whatsoever,  outward  or  inward,  in  undegraded  man. 
"Who  has  not  felt  these  things  in  some  privileged  moment  ? 
Who  does  not  understand,  when  he  reflects,  that  it  must  be 
so  ?  The  soundest  and  most  incontestable  philosophy,  and  the 
most  rigorous  theology,  teach  that  God  is  everywhere  pres- 
ent, that  God  is  in  all  being,  really  and  substantially.  Then, 
if  God  be  in  the  stone,  in  touching  it  I  implicitly  touch  him. 

Not  only  is  God  in  all  being,  but  he  operates  in  all  action 
and  acts  in  all  movement.  "  God  operates  in  every  operative 
being,"  says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  (Deus  operatur  in  omni 
operante).  This  is  true  of  all  movements  of  bodies  or  of 
minds.  God  is  necessarily  at  the  foundation  of  every  act  of 
thought  or  will.  Heat,  light,  attraction,  sounds,  savors,  per- 
fumes, —  all  things  which  are  forms  of  motion,  are  an  effect  of 
God's  presence,  of  God's  contact  with  material  bodies.  The 
light  of  the  sun  is  the  sun  which  God  incites  to  shine.  The 
sun  can  no  more  shine  without  the  impelling  force  of  God, 
than  it  can  ejdst  without  his  presence.  In  all  being,  in  all 
motion  whatsoever,  God  is  present  as  first  cause,  as  motion- 
less mover.  To  all  who  know  the  value  of  words,  these  are 
identical  propositions,  which  cannot  but  be  true. 

Thus  when  the  soul,  through  the  body,  is  conscious  of  any 
being  whatsoever,  it  receives  a  certain  impression,  of  which, 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROCESS.  347 

after  all,  the  first  cause  is  God ;  and  if  our  soul  possessed  all 
its  natural  refinement,  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  it  would  at 
once,  by  that  swift  circulation  of  vague  thoughts  and  ^ imper- 
ceptible arguments,  described  by  Leibnitz,  conceive,  in  a  more 
or  less  explicit  way,  of  the  infinite  and  eternal  power  which 
the  finite  and  transitory  being  that  it  touches,  implies  from 
the  fact  of  its  own  creation. 

Why  can  we  not  recall  our  earliest  childhood,  our  first 
vivid  impressions,  on  beholding  nature  and  life  which  have 
but  newly  come  to  us !  There  would  be  more  philosophy  in 
that  passive  wisdom  of  little  children  than  in  the  books  of 
philosophers.  It  may  be  in  this  sense  that  Christ  says : 
"  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  thou  hast  per- 
fected praise." 

I  remember,  in  childhood,  before  I  had  attained  what  is 
called  the  age  of  reason,  once  experiencing  this  sense  of  Being 
in  all  its  vividness.  A  great  effort  against  something  ex- 
ternal, distinct  from  myself,  whose  unyielding  resistance 
amazed  me,  led  me  to  pronounce  the  words :  "  I  am ! "  I 
thought  of  it  for  the  first  time.  Surprise  grew  into  intense 
amazement  and  into  the  most  vivid  admiration.  I  repeated, 
with  transport :  "  I  am !  .  .  .  being !  being ! "  All  the  re- 
ligious, poetic,  and  intelligent  foundation  of  my  soul  was 
stirred  and  awakened  at  that  instant.  A  penetrating  light, 
which  I  seem  still  to  see,  enveloped  me.  I  saw  that  Being 
is,  that  Being  is  beautiful,  blessed,  lovely,  full  of  mystery ' 

I  can  still  see,  after  the  lapse  of  forty  years,  all  these  inner 
facts,  and  the  physical  details  which  surrounded  me. 

Who  has  not,  in  his  life,  one  of  these  transfigured  memories 
which  time  cannot  impair  ?  We  see  it  still;  we  shall  always 
see  it !  We  see,  amidst  the  dimness  of  surrounding  and  for- 
gotten years,  days,  and  hours,  a  place,  a  scene,  a  landscape, 
a  feeling,  a  thought,  or  a  word.  Be  the  visible  detail,  the 
common  basis,  of  these  immortal  memories  what  it  may,  light 


348  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

envelops  the  scene.  But  study  it  with  care,  you  will  always 
find  in  these  luminous  depths  an  emotion  which  echoes  even 
to  God.  That  light,  in  fact,  was  God.  It  is  God  whom  we 
recall.  God  is  the  foundation  of  the  remembrance.  When 
we  have  once  dimly  perceived  him,  he  transfigures  forever  in 
our  mind  the  objects  and  the  veils  through  which  we  saw 
him. 

This  corresponds  to  that  noble  intellectual  phenomenon, 
familiar  to  meditative  minds,  which  may  be  called  the  trans- 
figuration of  words.  Sometimes  a  word  opens,  particularly 
if  it  be  a  word  used  in  the  Gospel,  and  a  flood  of  light  pours 
from  it,  which  is  a  living  idea,  proceeding  from  the  fountain- 
head.  At  the  heart  of  the  idea  there  is  a  feeling,  there  is  a 
soul,  and  at  the  centre  of  that  soul  is  God.  "  The  more  a 
word  resembles  a  thought,  a  thought  a  soul,  a  soul  God," 
some  one  has  said,  "  the  more  beautiful  it  is."  This  admira- 
ble remark  aptly  illustrates  the  relative  passage  from  a  word 
to  God.  Our  soul,  touched  by  this  word,  stirred,  that  is  to 
say,  moved,  advances  from  the  word  to  the  idea,  from  the 
idea  to  love,  and  from  love  to  God,  by  that  marvellous  move- 
ment of  spiritual  undulations  of  which  the  visible  waves  of 
light  are  but  a  feeble  image.  Thus  every  sensation,  in  a  soul 
not  degraded,  should  echo  from  the  outward  object  to  the 
soul,  from  the  soul  to  God. 

And  it  is  in  this  sense  that  we  can  say :  Everything  is  a 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  The  Heavens,  the  Earth,  Night, 
Day,  the  smallest  creature  and  the  feeblest  motion,  display 
God  and  celebrate  his  glory. 


CHAPTEE    I. 

TWO  DEGREES   OF   THE   DIVINE   INTELLIGIBLE. 


THE  reader  who  has  followed  us  thus  far  will  surely  be- 
lieve that  in  this  arduous  task  of  presenting  a  summary 
of  Philosophy,  our  object  is  not  merely  to  satisfy  intellectual 
curiosity.  Our  object  is  first  and  foremost  practical  and  re- 
ligious. We  desire  to  do  our  part  in  arousing  in  select  souls 
the  taste  for  wisdom,  the  passion  for  truth,  and  the  effort  for 
morality.  Active  search  after  goodness,  light,  virtue,  is 
more  than  ever  lacking  in  the  souls  of  men.  We  do  not 
watch,  we  do  not  pray,  as  Christ  requires  us  to  do.  We 
sleep,  as  Saint  Paul  said  (dormiunt  multi).  Life  makes  no 
effort,  consequently  no  progress,  consequently  loses  its  true 
glory  and  fruitfulness. 

Now,  to  our  thinking,  true  philosophy  is  nothing  but  this 
effort  to  gain  wisdom.  That  is  the  very  meaning  of  the 
word ;  and  it  is  in  this  sense  that  Cicero  understands  it  when 
he  says:  "Philosophy,  light  of  life!"  Saint  Gregory  Nazi- 
anzen  also  understands  it  thus  when  he  speaks  of  the  "  very 
lofty  Philosophy."  So  also  do  Saint  Gregory  Thaumaturgus 
and  Origen,1  when  they  assert  that  without  philosophy  there 
is  no  true  piety.  So  also  Saint  Augustine,  when  he  says . 
"  I  consecrate  my  life  to  philosophy." 2  Lastly,  when  Clement 

1  Panegyric  on  Origen  by  Saint  Gregory  Thaumaturgus. 

2  Huic  investigamlie  inservire  proposui. — Contra  Academ.,  lib.  iii.  43. 


350  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

of  Alexandria  asserts  that  before  the  coming  of  the  Saviour 
philosophy  was  requisite  to  lead  man  to  justice,  and  that  now 
it  leads  him  to  piety,1  it  is  plain  that  in  speaking  thus  that 
Father  means  by  philosophy,  as  we  do,  the  aspiration  of  the 
soul  towards  wisdom,  the  labor  of  reason  and  of  liberty,  in 
every  man,  to  gain  light  and  virtue. 

It  is  therefore  in  behalf  of  philosophy,  thus  conceived,  that 
we  labor.  We  desire  to  make  it  known,  and  to  arouse  it,  if 
may  be,  in  every  soul.  We  know  no  other  genuine  philoso- 
phy than  that  philosophy  —  true  aspiration  towards  all  wis- 
dom —  which  seeks  religion  when  deprived  of  it,  and  glorifies 
it  when  found. 

Let  us  note,  in  the  words  of  Saint  Clement  which  we  have 
just  quoted,  the  distinction  which  he  makes  between  philoso- 
phy before  the  coming  of  Christ  and  philosophy  after  Christ. 
Here  we  again  find  the  two  watersheds  in  the  history  of  the 
human  mind,  before  and  beyond  the  Cross;  and,  which  is 
the  same  thing,  the  two  states  of  human  reason,  according  as 
it  is  deprived  of  faith  or  illumined  by  it,  —  which  again  re- 
sponds to  the  great  distinction  between  the  two  regions  of 
the  world  of  intelligibility,  which  all  real  philosophers  have 
conjectured  or  known. 

It  is  this  supreme  distinction  which  we  desire,  above  all, 
to  establish  in  philosophy,  and  it  is  this  that  marks  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two  parts  of  this  Treatise  on  the  Knowl- 
edge of  God.  "  There  are,"  says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  "  two 
ways  of  knowing  God ;  there  are  two  degrees  of  the  divine 
intelligible,  and  the  wise  man  should  seek  to  know  God  in 
both  these  degrees." 

Not  that  we  intend  to  set  forth,  in  this  work,  what  Saint 
Thomas  calls  the  highest  degree  of  the  divine  intelligible :  that 
would  necessitate  a  statement  of  theology,  the  doctrine  of 

1  Atque  erat  quidem  ante  Domini  adventum  philosophia  Graecis  necessaria 
ad  justitiam;  nunc  autem  est  utilis  ad  pietatem. 


TWO  DEGREES  OF  THE  DIVINE  INTELLIGIBLE.   351 

faith;  but  we  shall  try,  in  this  philosophical  treatise,  to 
make  known  the  foundation  of  this  great  distinction,  and 
the  relation  of  reason  to  the  two  degrees  of  the  divine 
intelligible. 

We  must  essentially  distinguish  three  things  when  we 
speak  of  philosophy,  —  namely,  the  abuse  of  reason,  whence 
sophistry  results ;  the  purely  human  use  of  reason,  or  philo- 
sophy before  faith,  which  is  the  duty  of  the  mind  destitute 
of  faith  ;  and  lastly,  the  use  of  reason  enlightened  by  faith, 
philosophy  both  human  and  divine,  which  is  peculiarly  the 
philosophy  of  Christians  and  total  wisdom. 

It  is  indispensable  to  know  these  three  states  of  reason, 
these  three  tendencies  of  the  human  mind,  if  we  would 
avoid  the  one  which  leads  to  yawning  abysses,  and  would 
not  linger  with  the  one  which  remains  on  the  earth,  which 
becomes  corrupt  if  it  does  not  advance,  but  which,  when  it 
advances,  becomes,  as  De  Maistre  expresses  it,  the  human 
preface  to  the  Gospel,  or,  according  to  Baronius,  the  vestibule 
of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

To  speak  precisely,  there  are  actually  but  two  tendencies 
of  the  mind,  —  the  one  towards  God,  the  other  away  from 
God.  For  when  the  middle  tendency,  which  seeks  God  in 
the  limitations  of  human  nature,  is  true  to  itself,  aided  by 
God,  it  mounts  higher.  God,  by  a  new  principle  which  he 
gives  it,  changes  it  into  a  divine  virtue.  But,  on  the  con- 
trary, when  the  purely  human  tendency  is  opposed  to  that 
which  is  superior  to  it,  through  this  very  fact  it  changes  its 
own  course ;  it  turns  round,  belies  its  nature,  becomes  a 
sophistical  and  perverse  tendency,  and  falls  below  the  level 
of  man,  towards  those  degrees  of  debased  intelligence  which 
Saint  James  calls  a  carnal  and  diabolic  wisdom. 

The  knowledge  of  these  states  of  the  human  mind,  of  their 
relations,  and  of  the  causes  which  lead  a  soul  from  one  to 
the  other,  which  sometimes  urge  to  its  natural  conclusion 


352  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

the  effort  after  wisdom,  and  then  raise  it  higher  than  man, 
and  sometimes  turn  it  back  and  convert  it  into  a  revolt 
against  all  truth,  —  this  knowledge  would  surely  suffice  to 
put  an  end  to  all  the  intellectual  scandals  of  the  present 
day,  both  to  those  of  lawless  sophistry  and  those  of  the 
apparent  strife  between  reason  and  faith.  These  scandals 
must  be  overcome  if  we  desire  to  see  humanity,  held 
back  now  for  more  than  a  century,  resume  its  progressive 
march. 

Let  us  therefore  try  to  make  these  three   states  of  rea- 
son known  to  all. 


II. 

First,  let  us  descend  into  our  own  soul,  and  into  the  life 
of  our  own  mind,  to  seek  the  initial  elements  of  this  knowl- 
edge. There  is  no  one  who  has  not  hesitated  between  these 
three  states,  who  has  not  been  inclined  to  each  in  turn,  or 
has  not  really  passed  from  one  to  the  other. 

Unhappily,  scarcely  any  one  studies  his  own  soul  enough, 
or  exercises  what  true  observers  call  the  discernment  of 
minds.  Still,  as  all  these  various  movements  constitute  our 
daily  history,  I  hope  that  if  we  succeed  in  describing  them 
truthfully  in  these  pages,  they  may  be  readily  recognized 
by  all. 

First  comes  what  is  certain,  and  what  each  of  us  sees  in 
himself. 

There  is  something  that  speaks  within  us.  Is  it  our- 
self  ?  Is  it  something  other  than  ourself  ?  "  Is  it  I,  or 
another  ?  "  said  Saint  Augustine ;  "  is  it  I  and  another  at  the 
same  time  ? "  This  is  not  the  question  now.  But  what  is 
certain  is,  that  there  is  in  us  an  inner  conversation,  which  is 
not  always  made  up  of  lucid  discussion  or  finished  speech 
and  luminous  thoughts,  but  oftener  of  vague  thoughts,  im- 


TWO  DEGREES  OF  THE  DIVINE  INTELLIGIBLE.  353 

pressions,  and  sensations.  There  are  clear  and  cold  views; 
there  are  ardent  and  impassioned  movements ;  there  are 
secret  impressions,  implicit  desires,  almost  imperceptible 
lights. 

Now,  amidst  all  these  sensations,  does  your  soul  main- 
tain a  constant  and  habitual  effort  after  wisdom,  —  that  is 
to  say,  towards  light  and  virtue  ?  Do  you  unceasingly  tend 
and  aspire  towards  something  better  and  greater  than  your- 
self ?  Or  do  you  live  in  an  habitual  and  secret  state  of  despair 
of  attaining  to  truth  and  freedom  ?  Or  again,  formally  con- 
senting to  this  guilty  despair,  and  turning  it  into  a  deliberate 
maxim,  do  you  deny  in  your  heart  virtue,  truth,  the  future 
of  the  soul,  and  do  you  turn  all  your  efforts  to  the  search 
after  present  joys  ? 

These  are  the  two  tendencies,  —  one  towards  God,  and 
the  other  away  from  God.  But  the  tendency  towards  God, 
the  march  towards  wisdom,  has  two  degrees. 

Do  you  search  anxiously  ?  Do  you  seek  with  doubt 
which  is  ever  renewed  in  regard  to  the  sum  total  of  truth, 
although  you  may  be  certain  in  regard  to  some  details,  and 
you  have  flickering  lights,  sometimes  bright  and  sometimes 
dim  ?  Have  you  no  assurances  save  those  which  bestow  no 
peace,  —  rational  lights,  as  certain  as  geometry,  but  as  cold 
as  it ;  knowledges  full  of  defects  and  regrets  ;  persuasions 
ever  seeking  for  more  upon  which  to  rest  ?  Do  you  feel  a 
state  of  mental  exile  ?  Do  you  see  all  the  truth  which  you 
perceive,  as  being  outside  yourself,  and  remote,  like  a  star 
in  some  other  world,  which  does  indeed  send  us  a  few  of 
its  rays,  but  does  not  warm  us  ? 

If  you  seek  thus,  it  is  certain  that  you  have  reached  the 
first  degree  of  the  tendency  towards  wisdom.  That  wisdom 
appeals  to  yon,  since  you  seek  it;  it  appeals  to  you  con- 
stantly, though  indirectly,  since  it  leaves  you  no  peace,  since 
it  never  ceases  to  show  you  the  vanity  of  what  you  possess, 

23 


354  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

the  imperfection  and  defects  of  all  your  knowledge  and  all 
your  present  virtue.  You  are  like  the  Jews  under  the 
law,  which  makes  sin  abound,  says  Saint  Paul,  because  it 
renders  it  visible ;  but  you  are  not  yet  subject  to  grace, 
which  will  bring  you  light.  But  yet,  if  you  persevere  in 
your  attempt,  if  your  effort  is  maintained,  if  your  faith  in 
the  light  to  come  remains  unshaken,  you  will  have  fulfilled 
the  duty  of  that  degree  of  life ;  you  will  have  done  what 
was  in  you,  and  you  have  reason  to  hope  that  God  will  not 
refuse  to  raise  you  to  the  higher  degree. 

That  higher  degree  is  known  only  to  those  souls  whom 
God  himself  raises  to  it.  Its  chief  characteristic  is  peace. 
When  divine  wisdom  enters  the  soul,  its  first  words  are 
those  of  Jesus  Christ  when  he  entered  the  room  at  the  Last 
Supper :  "  Peace  be  with  you."  It  then  seems  to  the  soul 
that  it  is  no  longer  alone.  It  seems  as  if  the  Truth  said  to  it, 
"  I,  who  spake  to  you  from  afar,  am  here  with  you  (Ego  ipse 
qui  loquebar,  ecce  adsum)"  The  soul  feels  that  it  is  founded, 
rooted,  in  a  new  principle,  which  it  possesses,  which  exists 
in  it,  in  which  it  exists.  It  no  longer  hesitates  or  shifts  in 
regard  to  its  principle,  as  in  the  foregoing  degree,  but  it  pos- 
sesses it  and  is  conjoined  to  it.  It  is  no  longer  outside  of 
its  centre,  ever  impelled  to  hasten  in  order  to  approach  it, 
but  it  is  within  that  centre  which  attracted  it.  Its  task  and 
its  motion  change  their  nature.  It  was,  as  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas  says,  an  oblique  and  discursive  motion ;  it  is  now 
a  sort  of  motionless  motion,  comparable  to  the  motion  of  a 
sphere  which  is  at  rest  by  its  centre,  and  in  motion  by  its 
circumference.  It  was  the  course  of  a  mind  seeking  its 
point  of  departure  and  its  principle  ;  it  is  now  the  expansion 
of  an  intelligence  unfolding  in  the  light,  because  it  contains 
the  principle  of  light.  The  love  of  wisdom  no  longer  lies 
for  that  soul  in  seeking  unknown  wisdom  (Greed  sapientiam 
qucerunt),  but  in  glorifying  the  wisdom  it  has  found,  which 


TWO  DEGREES  OF  THE  DIVINE  INTELLIGIBLE.  355 

is  self-given  and  which  dwells  within  us  (nos  autem  prcedi- 
camus  .  .  .  Dei  sapientiam).  Woe  to  them  whose  effort  is 
again  relaxed,  and  who  neglect  the  present  wisdom,  while 
others  still  await  the  wisdom  to  come !  If  they  withdraw 
now,  they  will  quickly  fall  to  the  lowest  degree  of  that  outer 
darkness  where  all  those  dwell  who  despair  of  virtue  and 
truth. 

Thus  the  soul  sometimes  turns  its  effort  in  a  contrary  di- 
rection, surrenders  its  will  to  evil,  and  its  intelligence  to  error ; 
again,  it  indeed  pursues  wisdom,  but  without  possessing  its 
principle ;  and  yet  again  it  possesses  that  principle,  and  labors 
to  display  its  light. 

These  three  states  of  soul  correspond  to  the  states  of  phi- 
losophy, of  which  we  find  one  in  the  sophists  of  all  ages ; 
another  in  the  great  philosophers  of  antiquity,  such  as  Plato 
and  Aristotle ;  and  the  other  in  the  great  Christian  philoso- 
phers, such  as  Saint  Augustine  and  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas. 
Only  as  those  who  are  capable  of  the  most  are  capable  of  the 
least,  we  see  how  Saint  Thomas  could  write,  besides  his  Theo- 
logical Sum,  his  Sum  addressed  to  the  heathen,  where  he 
starts  with  philosophy  as  it  may  be  in  the  middle  and  purely 
human  degree.  We  see  that,  following  his  example  and  in 
his  footsteps,  we  should  strive,  in  this  work,  to  present  phi- 
losophy on  its  seizable  side  to  those  who,  destitute  of  the 
gift  of  faith,  can  as  yet  bring  to  it  only  the  effort  of  healthy 
reason. 

III. 

But  what  can  the  causes  be  which  drag  minds  down  from 
the  middle  to  the  lower  degree,  or  which  hinder  them  from 
rising  to  the  higher  degree,  or  which,  finally,  permit  the  eter- 
nal wisdom  to  address  to  them  the  blessed  invitation  of  the 
Gospel :  "  Friend,  go  up  higher." 


356  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

Let  us  imagine  a  mind  established  in  this  middle  degree,  a 
mind  in  which  we  find  the  beginning  of  philosophical  life ; 
by  this  I  mean  the  effort  after  wisdom.  What  is  the  duty  of 
that  soul  ?  What  is  its  law  ?  Clearly  this  is  its  law ,  "  Thou 
shalt  seek  with  all  thy  soul,  with  all  thy  heart,  with  all  thy 
mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength."  .  But,  I  ask,  who  is  there 
that  fulfils  this  law  ?  No  man  fulfils  it,  I  might  say  with 
Saint  Paul.  No  man  advances  towards  wisdom  with  all 
his  soul,  all  his  heart,  all  his  mind,  and  all  his  strength. 
Men  devote  a  part  of  their  powers  and  faculties  thereto, 
but  not  all. 

And,  first,  do  you  not  find  it  easier  to  seek  wisdom  with 
your  whole  mind  than  with  your  whole  soul  and  heart  ?  Do 
you  not  feel  that  we  may  indeed  devote  our  whole  intelli- 
gence to  the  task,  but  not  our  whole  will  ?  Is  not  this  the 
usual  state  of  the  soul?  I  speak  of  the  best  souls,  those 
whom  the  beauty  of  wisdom  attracts.  They  regard  it  as  a 
bright  ideal  which  they  love  to  contemplate,  but  which  they 
will  make  a  part  of  their  life  —  later !  We  see  the  good,  but 
we  follow  after  the  bad.  This  is  the  history  of  humanity. 

Thus,  first,  we  may  seek  wisdom  with  our  whole  mind, 
but  not  with  our  whole  heart,  nor  consequently  with  all  our 
powers,  since  the  heart  is  one  of  our  powers,  and  indeed  the 
chief  of  them.  But,  moreover,  is  it  indeed  true  that  we  de- 
vote our  whole  mind  to  it  ?  Do  you  not  observe  that  it  is 
very  rare  for  our  mind  to  spread  its  wings,  and  consequently 
put  forth  all  its  powers  ?  By  this  I  mean  that  it  is  very 
rarely  that  our  mind  takes  a  flight  and  leaves  the  earth  to 
rise  higher  in  search  of  the  unknown.  And  this  because  the 
human  mind  is  naturally  self-sufficient.  Man  scarcely  be- 
lieves that  there  is  anything  absolutely  unknown  to  him. 
Even  minds  whose  evident  poverty  should  most  distress 
them,  even  those  minds  most  destitute  of  light,  those  minds 
even  above  all  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  there  exists  a 


TWO  DEGREES   OF  THE  DIVINE  INTELLIGIBLE.  357 

light  greater  than  themselves ;  they  refuse  to  leave  self  be- 
hind by  some  vigorous  impulse;  they  do  indeed  try  to  de- 
duce what  they  do  not  know  from  that  which  they  know,  but 
they  do  not  try  to  acquire  those  things  of  which  they  are 
wholly  ignorant,  because  a  secret  pride  leads  them  to  declare 
that  there  is  nothing  of  which  they  are  absolutely  ignorant. 
The  mind  is  indocile  in  proportion  as  it  lacks  light,  and  far- 
ther removed  from  humility  in  proportion  to  its  pettiness. 
To  leave  self  behind,  as  Fe'nelon  says,  that  we  may  enter  the 
infinite  of  God,  is  a  thing  which  minds  without  greatness 
refuse  more  stubbornly  than  others. 

What  can  we  say,  save  that  the  mind  itself,  in  this  case, 
does  not  seek  wisdom  with  all  its  powers,  and  this  secret 
disposition  which  maintains  it  in  its  present  light  and  in 
the  identity  of  its  actual  wisdom,  deprives  it  of  the  chief  of 
the  two  movements  of  reason,  that  which  soars  upward, 
leaving  to  it  only  that  which  deduces  or  infers. 

All  true  progress  is  impossible  to  such  a  soul.  Its  will,  its 
practical  life,  almost  estranged  from  search  and  effort,  never 
grows ;  its  mind  never  discovers ;  it  does  not  acquire  any  new 
principle,  any  fresh  revelation ;  it  amplifies  what  it  possessed, 
and  deduces  consequences  therefrom,  but  does  not  gain  what 
it  does  not  already  possess,  and  does  not  arrive  at  any  essen- 
tial novelty. 

In  these  inner  facts  of  the  soul  you  have  the  history  of 
that  average  philosophy,  purely  human,  purely  speculative, 
and  incomplete  even  in  its  speculation,  which  is  locked  up 
in  itself,  and  does  not  attain  to  real  wisdom,  —  to  Christianity 
and  its  supernatural  faith,  that  new  and  divine  principle. 

Nor  is  this  all.  As  some  one  has  said,  Life  must  live,  — 
that  is,  must  grow  and  develop. 

And  this  law  of  progress  is  so  far  necessary  that,  sooner 
than  pause,  life,  when  necessary,  will  move  in  an  inverse 
sense,  and  will  progress  backwards. 


358  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

So  that,  if  the  natural  effort  of  the  soul  towards  wisdom 
be  constantly  arrested  from  above,  because  of  the  decided 
refusal  of  the  will  to  leave  self  behind  and  enter  the  infinite 
of  God,  there  will  come  a  time  when  wisdom,  tired  of  at- 
tracting it  in  vain,  will  repel  it.  Or  rather,  a  time  will 
come  when  the  soul  itself,  tired  of  constant  motion  without 
ever  reaching  the  end,  of  constant  search  without  ever  find- 
ing its  object,  and  of  constant  oscillation,  says  Plato,  between 
the  lower  and  the  middle  regions,  without  ever  penetrating 
the  higher,  —  the  soul,  I  say,  will  turn  entirely,  and  change 
its  course.  As  it  demands,  first  and  foremost,  happiness 
and  novelty,  it  will  try  if,  by  letting  itself  fall,  it  may  not 
find  the  happiness  and  life  which  it  did  not  gain  by  an 
indolent  effort  to  rise.  "  There  is  nothing  above,"  it  will  say 
to  itself;  "let  us  look  below." 

Such  is  sophistry,  the  carnal  and  diabolic  wisdom  of  which 
Saint  James  speaks.  The  soul  then  no  longer  merely  stifles 
the  inspirations  of  God,  it  turns  them  round ;  and  the 
hidden  spring,  which  comes  from  God's  immediate  contact 
with  the  root  of  the  soul,  according  to  Plato,  Bossuet,  and 
others,  being  unable  to  raise  it  to  God,  hurls  it  downward. 

We  again  encounter  this  latter  feature  in  that  purely 
human  philosophy,  which,  not  seeking  wisdom  with  all  its 
strength,  and  hence  not  attaining  the  end  of  reason,  is  at 
last  wearied,  and  often  turns  back,  is  transformed,  and  be- 
comes the  exact  opposite  of  philosophy,  —  the  source  of  all 
those  monstrous  errors  which  should  be  regarded,  distinctly 
says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  as  outside  the  pale  of  philoso- 
phy (extraneas  philosophice  opiniones). 

Close  examination  would  show  how  this  fall  results  in  the 
soul's  failure  to  fulfil  its  law,  —  that  is,  to  seek  with  all  its 
heart,  all  its  mind,  and  all  its  strength. 

The  soul  begins  by  bringing  its  effort  to  bear  upon  the 
mind  alone,  not  sufficiently  sustaining  the  mind  by  the 


TWO  DEGREES   OF  THE  DIVINE  INTELLIGIBLE.  359 

heart  and  practical  will.  Hence,  in  the  vigorous  and  pro- 
found words  of  the  Gospel,  "It  doeth  not  the  truth,"  it 
merely  looks  at  it.  Hence  comes  all  the  mischief.  The 
soul,  not  working  wisdom  in  itself,  cannot  grow  in  wisdom, 
and  limits  itself  to  considering  from  the  outside  an  abstract 
ideal  towards  which  it  does  not  advance.  At  first  it  looks 
and  longs  at  the  sight  of  this  beauty,  from  which  it  is  im- 
measurably remote.  Soon  it  ceases  to  long;  the  charm  of 
the  ideal  lessens  in  proportion  as  we  gaze  without  approach- 
ing and  reflect  without  acting.  Our  knowledge  is,  after  all, 
but  a  reflection  of  our  life.  Knowledge  is  experimental  in 
its  better  half.  If  moral  life  grows  less,  how  can  intellec- 
tual truth  increase  ?  "  For  he  that  doeth  truth,  cometh  to 
the  light,"  says  the  Gospel ;  "  and  every  one  that  doeth  evil, 
hateth  the  light,  neither  cometh  to  the  light."  But,  in  truth, 
from  the  very  fact  that  we  do  not  seek  wisdom  with  all  our 
strength,  with  heart  and  mind  alike,  but  rather  with  the 
mind  alone ;  from  this  very  fact  we  no  longer  seek  it  with 
our  whole  mind.  The  mind  has  its  roots  in  the  heart,  and 
necessarily  clings  to  the  will  even  in  the  unity  of  the  soul. 
There  are  sensations  which  the  isolated  mind  cannot  know ; 
the  mind  can  deduce  by  itself,  but  it  cannot  soar  by  itself. 
We  lessen  the  upward  flight  of  the  intelligence  in  proportion 
as  we  isolate  it  and  as  the  whole  soul  does  not  assist  it  with 
all  its  powers.  How,  then,  can  we  expect  such  a  mind  to 
rise  to  the  highest  region  of  the  intelligible,  and  reason,  so 
ill  supported,  to  attain  the  goal  ? 

It  can  only  vacillate  between  the  lower  and  the  middle 
regions,  become  exhausted  by  this  sterile  toil,  drop  back, 
invert  its  effort,  and  seek  progress  by  its  fall. 


360  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 


IV. 

We  will  now  show  how,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  granted  to 
the  soul  to  rise  from  the  medium  and  purely  human  state 
which  seeks  wisdom,  to  the  divine,  supernatural  state,  which 
possesses  it. 

To  understand  this,  we  must  admit  that  wisdom  seeks,  to 
bestow  herself  on  all,  and  traverses  the  nations,  as  the  holy 
Scripture  says,  to  form  friends  of  God  therein.  We  must  ad- 
mit that  this  wisdom  is  God,  and  that  it  continually  solicits 
every  soul.  "  Eternal  wisdom,"  says  Saint  Augustine,  "  never 
ceaseth  to  address  every  soul,  to  the  end  that  it  may  attract 
and  convert  it."  We  must  admit,  what  is  plain,  that  the 
majority  of  men  oppose  an  obstacle  thereto  in  the  bottom  of 
their  soul,  and,  what  is  no  less  plain,  that  the  soul,  in  the 
middle  state  where  we  have  imagined  it,  should  unceasingly 
aspire  and  tend  towards  that  wisdom  which  ceases  not  to 
solicit  it,  —  that  is,  towards  the  attraction  of  the  desirable 
and  intelligible.  The  soul  should  not  cease  to  groan  and 
sigh,  in  view  of  the  obstacle,  the  imperfection  and  vice  which 
dwejl  within  it,  and  which  remove  it  from  the  light  of  God. 
Let  us,  however,  suppose  that  this  aspiration,  beneath  the 
attraction  of  God,  by  the  good  will  of  man,  becomes  ever 
more  and  more  vivid  and  sincere,  and  that  the  soul,  in- 
creasing its  effort,  more  and  more  sets  its  heart  upon  it. 
Then  it  will  be  granted  to  it,  by  the  anticipative  goodness  of 
God,  to  effect  a  first  advance,  that  of  understanding  and 
feeling,  better  than  it  could  before  it  began  to  struggle,  that 
between  it  and  wisdom  lies  the  infinite,  and  that  an  effort 
a  thousand  times  greater  would  not  bring  it  any  closer,  —  an 
immense  although  a  negative  advance,  without  which  wis- 
dom is  never  to  be  given.  But  if  the  soul  possessed  the 
secret  of  life,  it  would  know  that  this  deep  and  humil- 


TWO  DEGREES  OF  THE  DIVINE  INTELLIGIBLE.  361 

iating  vision  of  its  own  insignificance  is  the  sign  of  the  ap- 
proach of  God.  The  soul  has  struggled,  hoped,  recognized 
its  impotence,  seen  its  infinite  distance  from  God,  and  yet  it 
still  hopes ;  it  understands  that  God  desires  to  give  himself, 
since  he  makes  himself  desired  and  sought ;  it  therefore  does 
that  which  is  in  it,  —  it  removes,  in  so  far  as  in  its  power, 
the  obstacle  to  God's  coming,  which  in  fact  forewarned  it, 
and  without  which  it  could  never  have  desired  or  sought  or 
struggled  or  recognized  its  impotence,  and  far  less  hoped, 
in  spite  of  the  vision  of  its  own  insignificance.  God  there- 
fore, so  soon  as  he  will,  and  he  will  as  soon  as  the  obstacle 
on  man's  side  is  removed,  —  God  bestows  himself,  and  the 
mystery  of  regeneration  is  fulfilled.  God  gives  the  mind 
and  soul  a  new  life,  which  is  the  possession  of  the  very 
principle  of  wisdom,  which  is  God.  The  soul  passes  from 
alarm  to  peace,  from  search  to  possession.  God  establishes 
it  in  a  state  which  is  the  germ  and  the  beginning  of  eternal 
life. 

We  have  spoken  of  purely  human  philosophy ;  we  have 
explained  what  arrests  it ;  we  also  know  what  turns  it  aside 
and  hurls  it  headlong.  We  have  pointed  out  what  consti- 
tutes its  progress ;  then  what  transforms  it,  raises  it  above 
itself  and  above  man.  But  this  important  point  requires 
ample  study.  Now,  as  the  true  progress  of  healthy  reason 
clearly  is  to  attain  its  end,  as  Saint  Augustine  says  (ratio 
perveniens  ad  finem  suum  *),  as  that  end  is  a  new  light  other 
than  that  which  it  at  first  possessed ;  as  that  light  is  no 
other  than  the  supernatural  light  of  faith,  announced  by 
Christianity,  —  it  follows  that  we  shall  here  enter  upon  a  sort 

1  Let  us  not  forget  that  these  words  of  Saint  Augustine  can  be  under- 
stood only  in  the  sense  of  Saint  Thomas,  when  he  speaks  of  reason  which  has 
attained  its  highest  degree  of  perfection  through  supernatural  light  (ratio 
perfecta  lumine  supernaturali).  Perfected  reason,  raised  above  itself,  is  rea- 
son which  has  attained  its  supernatural  end,  very  different  from  its  natural 
end.  It  is  to  the  supernatural  end  that  Saint  Augustine  alludes  here. 


3C2  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

of  Treatise  as  to  the  relations  of  reason  and  faith  ;  or,  if  you 
prefer,  the  relations  of  reason  to  the  highest  degree  of  the 
divine  intelligible. 

There  is  a  void  in  almost  every  treatise  on  philosophy : 
they  lack  a  special  chapter  on  the  relations  of  reason  and 
faith.  This  void  must  be  filled  up  in  future.  Already  The- 
ology, on  its  side,  extending  its  hand  to  Philosophy,  has  in- 
troduced, among  its  other  divisions,  a  special  treatise  on  the 
relations  of  reason  and  faith.1  Philosophy,  in  its  turn,  must 
follow  that  example. 

This  is  what  we  now  undertake. 

1  See  Perrone's  Theology:  Tractatus  de  Analogia  fidei  et  rationis. 


CHAPTER  II. 

RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH. 


^  I  ^HE  distinction  between  healthy,  right,  and  useful  hu- 
man  philosophy,  and  sterile  and  hide-bound  or  per- 
verse and  introverted  philosophy,  is  that  true  philosophy,  in  its 
full  effort  after  total  wisdom,  may  be  called  by  the  name  given 
it  by  the  Middle  Ages,  "  Intelligence  in  search  of  faith."  This 
work  will  reveal  it  more  and  more ;  and,  to  our  thinking,  we 
have  already  proved  it  by  our  studies  of  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Saint  Augustine,  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  the  seventeenth 
century.  If  it  be  true  that  all  philosophers  of  the  first  rank 
—  and  notably  Plato  —  make  a  distinction  between  the  two 
regions  of  the  intelligible  world ;  if  this  distinction  has  its 
root  in  the  very  core  of  philosophy ;  if  it  be  certain,  as  phi- 
losophers and  theologians  superabundantly  declare,  that  one  of 
these  two  degrees  is  the  perception  of  absolute  and  necessary 
truths,  as  God  impresses  them  upon  our  native  reason,  and 
which  constitute  that  reason,  while  the  other  is  the  direct, 
immediate  perception  of  the  source  which  causes  these  truths 
to  shine  within  us,  that  is,  of  God,  viewed,  not  in  a  mirror, 
but  in  himself ;  if  it  be  true  that  faith  is  the  attempt  at  or 
beginning  of  that  direct  vision,  as  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  and 
Bossuet  say,  and  that  hence  it  is  distinguished  from  the 
reason  which,  of  itself,  is  incapable  of  this  vision,  and  can 
only  grieve  after  it  and  conjecture  it,  —  if  all  this  be  true,  it 
results  that  the  healthy  and  right  reason  is  that  which  seeks 
both  regions  of  the  intelligible,  and  pursues  its  double  per- 


364  GUIDE    TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

fection,  natural  and  supernatural,  as  Saint  Thomas  expresses 
it :  it  follows  that  the  true  philosophy  is  that  which  seeks, 
regrets,  desires,  waits  for  faith  when  it  is  without  it,  and 
which,  when  it  finds  it,  takes  firm  root  in  it,  develops  it, 
raises  itself  above  itself  by  this  supernatural  support,  and 
bears,  through  this  divine  strength,  fruits  which  it  could  not 
otherwise  bear. 

Let  us,  therefore,  enter  with  attention  and  respect  upon 
this  study  of  the  relations  of  faith  and  reason.  What  is  rea- 
son ?  What  is  faith  ?  What  relation  unites  them  ?  What 
can  reason  do  without  faith  ?  What  is  its  duty  when  faith 
is  given  ? 

It  has  not  been  sufficiently  noted  that  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas,  the  most  vigorous  metaphysical  genius,  perhaps, 
who  ever  lived,  the  one  of  all  writers  in  whom  knowledge 
and  sanctity,  reason  and  faith,  were  best  combined,  wrote 
two  principal  works,  the  Theological  Sum  and  the  Philosophi- 
cal Sum,  and  that  these  two  works  correspond  exactly  to 
the  two  states  of  reason  and  philosophy,  to  the  two  regions 
of  the  intelligible  world.  In  the  Theological  Sum,  the  holy 
doctor,  as  a  learned  oratorian 1  observes,  "  merely  translates 
the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel  into  philosophy  ; "  it  is  philosophy 
after  faith,  or  faith  seeking  for  intelligence  (fides  qucerens 
intellectual).  In  the  Sum  addressed  to  the  Heathen,  Saint 
Thomas  himself  declares  that  it  being  clearly  the  duty  of 
the  wise  to  traverse  both  regions  of  divine  truths,  that  which 
reason  attains  of  itself,  and  that  which  transcends  its  effort, 
he  intends,  in  that  book,  to  seek  by  the  rational  way  all 
that  human  reason  can  attain  of  God.  This  is  philosophy 
before  faith;  it  is  intelligence  seeking  faith  (intellectus 
queer  ens  fidem). 

In  the  beginning  of  the  Philosophic  Sum,  Saint  Thomas 
states  in  these  terms  the  distinction  between  the  two  regions 

1  Amelotte,  Vie  de  Condren. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      365 

of  the  intelligible  world,  the  two  orders  of  divine  truths,  or 
rather  the  two  modes  in  which  it  may  be  given  to  man  to 
know  God,  —  a  double  knowledge,  which  he  who  seeks  wisdom 
should  pursue  impartially.  He  says,  — 

"  Since  there  are  men  who  do  not  accept  the  authority  of  reve- 
lation, we  must  have  recourse  to  the  use  of  the  natural  reason, 
to  which  every  man  is  forced  to  submit,  but  which,  however,  in 
divine  things  has  but  a  limited  range. 

"  There  is,  in  what  touches  God,  a  double  mode  of  truth.  There 
are,  in  God,  truths  which  all  the  powers  of  the  human  mind  can- 
not reach.  .  .  .  There  are  others  which  the  natural  reason  can 
reach,  such  as  the  existence  and  unity  of  God,  and  those  of  similar 
nature,  which  philosophers,  indeed,  led  by  the  natural  light  of 
reason,  have  demonstrated.1 

"  To  scan  the  depths  of  the  sovereign  essence,  and  the  trans- 
cendant  side  of  the  divine  intelligible,  is  clearly  beyond  the  hu- 
man reason  ;  and  this  Aristotle  himself  seems  to  have  understood 
when  he  asserts  (Metaph.  ii.)  that  in  regard  to  the  principle  of 
the  Being  which,  from  its  nature,  is  light  itself,  our  intelligence  is 
as  the  eye  of  the  owl  in  presence  of  the  sun."  2 

Saint  Thomas  adds,  — 

"There  are,  then,  two  degrees  of  truth  in  the  divine  intelligible: 
one  attainable  by  the  search  of  reason,  and  the  other,  which  trans- 
cends its  efforts."  3 

The  holy  doctor  concludes,  — 

"  It  clearly  results  from  what  has  just  been  said  that  the  wise 
man  should  devote  himself  to  these  two  orders  of  divine  truths, 
one  of  which  is  accessible  to  the  investigation  of  reason,  the  other 
of  which  transcends  all  that  its  zeal  can  attain.  It  is  understood 
that  when  I  distinguish  two  orders  of  truths  in  the  divine  intelli- 
gible, I  fully  comprehend  that  it  is  not  so  in  God,  who  is  single 
and  simple  truth  ;  this  distinction  relates  only  to  the  human 
understanding,  which  has  two  modes  of  knowing  God."  4 

1  Contra  Gentes,  cap.  iii.  8  Ibid.  cap.  iv. 

2  Ibid.,  cap.  iii.  3.  4  Ibid.,  cap.  ix. 


366  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

What  Saint  Thomas  says  here  is  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance. In  these  passages,  the  two  degrees  of  the  intelligible 
are  clearly  distinguished  one  from  the  other.  Man  may 
attain  to  one  by  natural  reason,  such  as  it  is,  and  he  can 
only  attain  to  the  other  through  faith.  This  distinction 
relates  to  man  only,  not  to  God.  In  him  there  is  one  only 
truth,  which  is  God.  But  man  may  know  this  truth  in  two 
ways.  The  two  lights  of  which  theology  treats,  the  natural 
light  and  the  supernatural  light,  are  in  God  but  one  and  the 
same  light,  variously  received  by  man.  And  Saint  Thomas 
asserts,  as  an  evident  fact,  that  the  wise  man  should  study 
both. 

This  distinction  being  clearly  established,  —  with  this  im- 
portant reserve,  that  it  is  not  relative  to  God,  but  to  man,  that 
is  to  say,  it  being  fully  understood  that  the  same  God  is  the 
source  of  the  light  of  reason  as  well  as  of  the  light  of  faith, 
and  that  in  him  there  is  but  one  light,  —  let  us  strive  to  know 
fully  wherein  reason  and  faith  consist,  what  they  are  in  re- 
gard one  to  the  other. 

II. 

There  is  God,  there  is  the  soul.  God  is  a  light  which  en- 
lightens the  soul,  and  which  the  soul  can  conceive  in  two 
ways.  But  what  is  the  characteristic  feature  of  these  two 
ways  ?  "  The  light  of  reason,"  says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas, 
"  by  which  we  know  the  principles  of  truth,  is  a  light  which 
God  sheds  within  us ;  it  is  an  image  of  the  uncreated  truth 
which  is  reflected  in  us." 1 

This  is  what  we  have  already  frequently  repeated,  with 
Saint  Augustine,  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  Thomassin : 
reason  is  the  light  of  God,  seen  in  us,  reflected  in  the  mirror 
of  the  soul,  in  the  words  of  Saint  Paul.  "  The  assurance  of 
reason  proceeds  from  a  light  which  God  gives  us  inwardly 

1  Verit.,  qusest.  ii.  art.  i. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      367 

and  by  which  he  speaks  in  us.1  '  God  maketh  the  light  of  his 
face  to  shine  upon  us,'  says  the  Psalmist.  This  is  the  light 
of  natural  reason,  which  is  the  image  of  God."2  Saint 
Thomas,  following  Saint  Augustine  in  this  (it  is,  moreover, 
the  constant  doctrine  of  the  Fathers,  of  the  Theologians,  and 
of  the  Holy  Scripture),  always  insists  upon  this  lofty  origin  of 
reason.  To  him,  "  reason  is  the  impression  made  upon  us  by 
divine  light."  3  To  him,  "  the  natural  light,  thrown  into  the 
soul,  is  the  illumination  of  God."  4  To  him,  "  the  principles 
of  practical,  as  well  as  of  speculative  reason,  are  natural  data 
which  exist  in  the  soul."  5  But  this  vision  in  ourselves  of 
the  light  of  God,  Saint  Thomas  calls,  with  Saint  Paul,  seeing 
in  a  glass;6  it  is  absolutely  distinct  from  the  sight  of  the 
light  of  God  in  God,  which  is  no  longer  specular  vision,  but 
rather  vision  through  essence.7 

"  Doubtless,"  says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  "  when  we  see, 
by  reason,  certain  immutable,  eternal  truths,  which  hence 
are  beyond  us,  we  may  see  that  we  see  them  in  God,  since 
we  know  nothing  save  through  his  light,  and  since  reason  is 
a  participation  in  that  light ;  for,  says  Saint  Augustine,  these 
intelligible  spectacles  are  only  made  visible  to  us  as  illumi- 
nated by  their  sun,  which  is  God.  But  even  as  in  the  world 
of  bodies,  to  see  objects  beneath  the  sun,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  see  the  substance  and  orb  of  the  sun,  so  too  with  this 
intellectual  vision  through  the  reason,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
see  the  essence  of  God." 8 

In  telling  us  what  reason  is,  Saint  Thomas  begins  to  make 

1  Verit.,  quaest.  ii.  art.  1. 

-  Comment,  in  Paul. 

3  1».  2".  q.  xci.  art.  2. 

*  1".  2»e.  q.  ix.  art.  1. 

5  Naturaliter  nobis  esse  indita  sicut  principia  speculabilium  ita  et  principia 
operabilium. 

6  Visio  specularis. 

7  Cognitio  per  esseutiam. 

8  la.  q.  xii.  art.  11  ad  3". 


368  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

clear  to  us  what  faith  is.  Eeason  is  like  seeing  the  world 
beneath  the  sun,  and  faith,  or  at  least  that  vision  of  which 
faith  is  an  essay,  a  foretaste,  an  imperfect  participation,  is 
like  seeing  the  sun  itself.1 

This  again  rests  upon  the  noble  text  already  quoted  in  our 
study  of  the  Theodicy  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas :  "  Light, 
during  our  earthly  sojourn,  is  given  to  us  in  two  ways. 
Sometimes  in  a  less  degree,  and,  as  it  were,  from  a  faint  ray : 
this  is  the  light  of  our  natural  intelligence,  which  is  a  partici- 
pation in  the  eternal  light,  but  remote,  defective,  comparable 
to  a  shadow  mingled  with  a  little  light :  which  gives  man 
that  reason,  the  shadow  of  intelligence,  whose"  feeble  radi- 

1  The  word,  faith,  says  Billuart,  has  several  meanings.  Sometimes,  for  in- 
stance, it  signifies  consciousness  (what  we  call  natural  faith,  or  divine  sense) ; 
sometimes  it  signifies  the  teaching  of  the  faith,  the  object  itself  of  faith  ;  some- 
times, again,  it  signifies  that  divine  virtue  whose  principle  is  grace,  whose  formal 
object  is  God  alone,  whose  formal  motive  is  the  wisdom  and  authority  of  God 
alone,  whose  material  object  is  all  that  God  has  revealed,  and  whose  rule  is  the 
Catholic  Church  alone.  It  is  this  virtue,  taken  in  itself,  considered  as  a 
supernatural  gift,  in  the  supernatural  light  which  constitutes  it,  that  Saint 
Thomas,  transforming  Saint  Paul's  phrase,  defines  as  "A  habit  of  the  soul 
with  which  eternal  life  begins  in  us,  and  by  which  the  intelligence  clings  to  di- 
vine things  which  it  sees  not  (Fides  est  habitus  mentis  quo  inchoatur  vita  ceterna 
in  nobis,  faciens  inteUectum  non  apparentibus  assentire)."  Still,  Saint  Thomas 
does  not  insist  so  strongly  on  the  obscurity  of  faith  that  he  does  not  also  say  : 
"Faith  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  knowledge  and  vision  (Fides  etiam  guodammodo 
scientia  et  visio  dicitur)."  (Verit.  xiv.  art.  4.)  And  elsewhere:  "Faith  is 
an  imperfect  beginning  of  future  knowledge  (Fides  est  qucedam  prcelibatio  brevis 
cognitionis  quam  infuturo  habemus)."  (Verit.,  art.  2,  ad  9m.)  Saint  Thomas 
also  makes  the  word,  faith  synonymous  with  supernatural  light,  when  he  says  : 
"  That  light  which  is  faith,  is  that  which  produces  assent  to  divine  truths  ; 
and  it  is  hence  that  it  is  akin  to  perfection  ;  but  we  do  not  possess  this  light 
perfectly,  intellectual  imperfection  subsists  with  faith  (Ex  lumine  simplici, 
quod  est  fides,  causatur  id  quod  perfectionis  est,  assentire  ;  sed  in  quantum  illud 
lumen  non  perfecte  parti cipatur,  non  totaliter  tollitur  imperfectio  intellectus)." 
(Verit.  xiv.  2  ad  5m. )  It  is  in  this  sense  that  several  catechisms  define  faith  : 
"A  gift  of  God  and  a  supernatural  light  which  makes  us  cling  to  the  truths 
revealed  by  God."  It  is  of  course  understood  that  here  we  are  speaking  par- 
ticularly of  the  intellectual  element  of  faith.  There  is  a  voluntary  element  of 
which  we  must  never  lose  sight,  and  of  which  Saint  Thomas  says,  In  cogni- 
tionefidei  principalitatem  habet  voluntas  (Contra  Gentes,  1.  in.  c.  xl.). 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      369 

ance  engenders  diversity  of  opinions  which  the  direct  radi- 
ation of  light  will  destroy.  Sometimes  again  we  receive  light 
in  a  greater  degree,  in  more  abundance,  and  we  are  brought, 
as  it  were,  face  to  face  with  the  sun.  But  then  our  eyes  are 
dazzled,  because  we  contemplate  that  which  transcends  human 
sense ;  and  this  is  the  light  of  faith." 

Whence  it  clearly  results,  as  from  our  entire  study  of  the 
Theodicy  of  Saint  Thomas,  that,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Angelic 
Doctor,  there  are  two  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible,  to 
which  reason  and  faith  correspond;  that  light,  in  itself,  is  one, 
but  that  the  created  spirit  sees  it  in  two  ways,  directly  or 
indirectly.  Or  rather,  it  sees  the  likeness  of  it  in  itself,1  the 
image  and  the  reflection  ;  and  this  reflected  light  is  the  light 
of  reason.  Or  the  created  spirit  may  see  light  in  God  him- 
self ;  it  may  see,  no  longer  in  itself,  but  in  God,  its  source 
and  its  direct  rays,  as  when  an  eye  beholds  the  sun.  And 
this  direct  light  is  the  supernatural  light,  which  begins  in 
faith,  although  it  only  attains  its  consummation  in  the 
beatific  vision. 

This  distinction  between  reason  and  faith,  between  natural 
and  supernatural  light,  is  that  of  all  Christian  theology. 
Let  us  recall  that  which  we  saw  in  our  study  of  Thomassin. 
There  we  found  precisely  the  same  doctrine,  and,  as  it  were, 
the*  commentary  of  Saint  Thomas.  According  to  Thomassin, 
reason  doubtless  sees  the  truth  of  God  ;  but  it  only  receives 
the  light  thereof  in  a  tempered  condition,  according  as  it  can 
bear  it  in  its  present  state.  They  are  rays  of  the  eternal  light 
of  the  AVord,  but  let  down  to  us  (condescensiones  quasdam). 
These  same  rays  constitute  reason  (hoc  sic  inest  rationi,  ut 
hoc  ipsum  ipsa  ratio  sit).  It  is  God  revealing  himself  to 
souls,  not  such  as  he  is,  but  such  as  they  are  (radius  Deitatis 
ostendentis  se,  non  qualis  ipsa  est,  sed  quales  ipsce  sunt). 
And,  further  says  Thomassin,  copying  Saint  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 

1  Similitude  veritatis  increatse  in  nobis  resultantis. 
24 


370  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

who  speaks  as  do  Augustine  and  Plato,  these  rays  are  simu- 
lacra, images  and  imitations  of  God  (simulacra,  similitudines 
et  quasi  imit amenta).  Yea,  he  says,  this  is  a  simulacrum, 
and  a  very  luminous  image  of  divinity.  The  spectacle  of 
eternal  principles,  according  to  Saint  Augustine  (spectacula 
ilia  ceternarum  rationum),  is  God  when  he  sends  us  his 
light,  and  impresses  it  upon  us ;  but  it  is  not  God  himself 
directly  present  (non  immigrando,  sed  inscribendo)  ;  in  a 
word,  says  Thomassin,  this  degree  of  the  divine  intelligible, 
according  to  Saint  Thomas,  is  like  unto  a  mirror  in  which 
God  shows  himself  by  sending  his  rays  into  it  (nimirum  hcec 
specula  sunt  in  qiice  radios  suos  Deus  ejaculatur,  in  quibus 
videtur). 

In  Thomassin's  opinion,  this  doctrine  in  regard  to  the 
nature  of  reason,  namely,  that  it  is  only  a  certain  aspect  of 
the  Word,  and  that  immutable,  geometrical,  logical,  and 
moral  truths  are  seen  in  the  light  of  the  Word,  —  this  doc- 
trine is  not  only  that  of  the  Fathers  and  Theologians,  it  is 
plainly  that  of  Christ  and  the  Holy  Gospel. 

Having  characterized  reason,  Thomassin  describes  the  two 
degrees  of  the  intelligible  with  which  we  are  striving  to 
become  familiar.  "The  first  degree  of  knowledge,"  he  says, 
"gives  us  certain  necessary  truths,  which  are  eternal,  immu- 
table ;  these  are  the  eternal  reasons,  rays  of  the  incorruptible 
truth  which  is  revealed  always  and  everywhere  to  every 
being  endowed  with  reason. 

"  F>ut  if  a  spirit  love  to  follow  this  light,  to  linger  and 
purify  itself  in  its  rays,  then  it  in  its  turn  becomes  light ; 
it  can  receive  true  purity,  and  become  the  child  of  God, 
worthy  at  last  to  see  God."  l 

Thus,  according  to  Thomassin,  the  first  degree  shows  us 
certain  truths,  immutable  principles,  which  are  the  light  of 
the  Word  in  the  soul ;  but  the  second  shows  us  God  him- 

1  De  Proleg.  Theol.,  vol.  iii.  cap.  ix.  §  1. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND^  FAITH.     371 

self.  Such  are  indeed  the  two  degrees  of  the  intelligible,  of 
which  one  is  the  natural  sphere  of  reason,  but  the  other  is 
supernatural,  and  is  granted  only  to  the  regenerate,  in  that 
light  whose  beginning  is  faith.  In  a  word,  the  first  degree 
shows  God  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul ;  and  the  second,  God 
in  himself. 

Saint  Augustine  understands  it  no  otherwise,  as  we  have 
already  shown.  But  he  expresses  it  in  a  particularly  forci- 
ble way  when  he  calls  the  two  lights  "  the  illuminating  light 
and  the  illuminated  light  (lumen  illuminans  et  lumen  illumi- 
natum)"  Eeason  perceives  only  the  illuminated  light.  And 
direct  vision,  of  which  faith  is  the  attempt,  has  for  object  only 
the  illuminating  light.  This  is  what  the  great  doctor  teaches 
when,  speaking  of  his  human  knowledge  before  faith  (cum 
deformiter  et  sacrilega  turpitudine  in  doctrina  pietatis  erro- 
rem),1  he  compares  himself  to  a  man  who  turns  his  back  to 
the  light,  and  his  face  to  material  objects.  This  comparison 
is  the  exact  truth  upon  this  point.  "  I  delighted  in  these 
things,"  he  says,  "but  knew  not  whence  came  all,  what 
therein  was  true  or  certain.  For  I  had  my  lack  to  the  light, 
and  my  face  to  the  things  enlightened  ;  whence  my  face, 
with  which  I  discerned  the  things  enlightened,  itself  was 
not  enlightened."2  And  it  is  not  of  sensible  knowledge, 
properly  so  called,  that  Saint  Augustine  speaks  here,  but 
rather  of  rational  knowledge ;  he  refers  to  abstract,  geomet- 
rical truths,  immutable,  necessary  qualities,  figures,  and  num- 
bers (de  dimentionibus  figurarum  et  de  musicis  et  de  numeris). 
The  natural  light  of  reason,  according  to  Saint  Augustine, 
is  therefore  reflected  light,  while  the  other  is  direct.  The 
latter  the  eye  receives  itself,  coming  from  its  source, 
and  does  not  derive  it  from  objects  or  abstract  it  from 
creatures. 

Now,  these  comparisons  are  the  deepest  and  clearest  ex- 

1  Confess.  I.,  lib.  iv.  cap.  xiv.  p.  31.  2  Ibid.,  p.  30. 


372  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

pressions  of  philosophy  on  this  subject.  Reason  is  a  certain 
vision  of  God,  this  is  great  and  positive.  But  it  is  not  the 
direct,  immediate  view  of  the  substance  and  essence  of  God. 
It  is  a  vision  of  God  by  means  of  reflection  ;  it  is  an  image 
of  God  which  the  soul  perceives  by  seeing  itself. 

This  is  clear,  simple,  and  certain,  intelligible  to  all,  useful, 
fruitful,  and  the  fiDal  word  uttered  by  philosophers  of  the 
first  order,  and  by  theologians,  in  regard  to  the  nature  of 
reason. 

The  importance  and  fertility  of  this  theory  of  reason  lies 
especially  in  the  fact  that  it  also  shows  us  that  reason  is 
something  correlative  to  faith  ;  so  that  when  we  know  what 
reason  is,  we  also  know,  up  to  a  certain  point,  what  faith  is. 
If  we  comprehend  that  there  are  two  modes  of  seeing  God, 
—  indirectly  and  in  his  image ;  directly  and  in  himself,  —  we 
comprehend  that,  if  reason  be  the  first  of  these  two  modes 
in  which  man  sees  God,  there  remains  the  second.  Every 
philosopher  will  admit  this,  and  the  theologian  may  then 
say,  That  second  mode  of  seeing  God  is  that  which  we  call 
supernatural.  The  philosopher,  if  he  be  a  true  philosopher, 
will  understand  this.  Moreover,  we  at  once  comprehend 
that  reason,  having  attained  its  natural  end,  and  contem- 
plating these  intelligible  spectacles,  illuminated  by  that  di- 
vine sun  which  it  does  not  see,  may,  as  it  did  in  Plato  himself, 
recognize  that  even  these  are  but  divine  phantasms,  conjec- 
ture that  the  sun  exists,  and  feel  regret  at  not  seeing  it. 
Now,  the  beginning,  imperfect  and  obscure,  of  this  super- 
natural knowledge  of  God,  is  faith. 

III. 

This  distinction  is  so  fundamental  and  general  that  it 
recurs,  by  analogy,  throughout  the  history  of  the  development 
of  man  in  relation  to  God. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     373 

Saint  Paul,  establishing,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
the  difference  between  the  two  Testaments,  between  the  law 
of  Moses  and  Christian  faith,  had  it  in  view.  Ee-read  that 
Epistle.  Throughout  his  constant  comparison  of  the  two 
Testaments,  of  law  and  grace,1  we  find  the  analogy  of  reason 
and  faith. 

In  one,  God  spoke  through  the  prophets  (chap.  i.  1);  in  the 
other,  he  speaks  to  us  directly  through  his  Son,  who  is 
God.  One  is  the  word  of  Moses,  announcing  God  to  us  ; 
the  other  is  God  himself  (chap.  iii.  3,  4).  We  must  transcend 
this  first  degree,  which  is  weak,  and  does  not  move  directly  to 
eternal  salvation.  The  law  did  not  give  perfection.  But  we 
have  a  better  hope,  that  of  union  with  God  (chap.  vii.  18, 19). 
The  priest  of  the  law  is  only  frail  man ;  but  that  which 
comes  after  the  law  is  the  eternal  and  perfect  Son  (chap.  viiL 
28).  In  the  Old  Testament,  God  takes  us  by  the  hand;  in 
the  New,  God  takes  us  by  the  heart  (chap.  viii.  9,  19).  The 
Old  Testament  is  only  the  image  and  shadow  of  celestial 
things  (exemplari  et  umbrae  ccelestium) ;  the  New  gives  us 
celestial  things  themselves,  heaven  itself  (ipsa  ccelestia,  ipsum 
ccelum).  (Chap.  ix.  23,  24.) 

There  are  two  tabernacles,  one  of  which  is  called  the 
worldly  sanctuary  (Sanctum  sceculare),  and  the  other  the 
Holy  of  Holies  (Sanctum  sanctorum),  (chap.  ix.  1,  3).  The 
latter  was  behind  the  veil.  It  is  now  revealed.  Christ  him- 
self has  become  priest,  to  give  us  everlasting  salvation  by 
this  greater  and  more  perfect  tabernacle,  which  is  not  made 
with  hands ;  that  is  to  say,  is  not  of  this  creation,  but  is 
supernatural  (chap.  ix.  11,  12). 

Yes,  the  law  had  but  a  shadow  of  good  things  to  come 

1  Not  that  we  would  maintain  that  there  was  no  grace  under  the  law  and 
in  the  law,  —  a  theory  condemned  by  the  Bull  Auctorem  Fidei.  But  this,  far 
from  destroying  our  analogy,  confirms  it,  for  we  also  think,  as  will  be  shown 
later,  that,  in  real  life,  grace  is  continually  blended  with  reason,  even  when 
reason  works  in  its  own  peculiar  domain. 


374  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

(umbram  enim  habens  lex  futurorum  bonorum) ;  but  the 
just  shall  live  by  faith  (Justus  autem  ex  fide  vivify.  Faith  is 
the  substance  of  things  hoped  for  (est  fides  sperandarum 
substantia  rerum),  (chap.  x.  1 ;  chap.  xi.  1).  Under  the  law 
there  was  a  voice  which  spake  on  earth,  there  is  now  a  voice 
which  speaketh  to  us  from  heaven  (chap.  xii.  25,  27).  And 
that  voice  will  change  the  earth,  the  transitory  abode  of  man, 
into  the  kingdom  of  God  which  cannot  be  moved. 


IV. 


This  established,  what  can  reason  do  without  faith  ?  What 
is  its  duty  in  advance  of  faith  ?  We  have  already  stated 
this  at  length  in  the  words  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas.  It 
can  attain  to  the  first  of  the  two  orders  of  truths  to  be 
distinguished  in  the  divine  intelligible.  It  can  do  this,  it 
should  do  this ;  and,  as  an  actual  fact,  according  to  the  same 
learned  doctor,  these  truths,  —  which  are  the  existence  of 
God,  his  unity,  and  others  of  similar  nature,  —  have  been 
demonstrated  by  various  philosophers,  illumined  by  the 
natural  light  of  reason.1 

Natural  reason  may,  without  the  aid  of  supernatural  reve- 
lation, know  with  certainty  various  truths,  not  only  of  the 
geometric  order,  but  also  touching  God,  and  we  must  accept 
this  theologic  proposition :  "  Healthy  reason,  without  the 
aid  of  supernatural  revelation,  may  know  with  certainty 
various  truths  of  the  natural  order,  which  we  may  call 
preambles  of  faith."2  We  style  an  error  of  the  super- 
naturalists  the  error  of  those  mentioned  by  Saint  Thomas, 
who  hold  "  that  the  existence  of  God  cannot  be  discovered 
by  reason,  but  must  be  received  by  the  single  means  of 

1  Contra  Gentes,  cap.  iii. 

2  Perrone,  de  Analogia  rationis  et  fidei,  prop.  i. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     375 

faith  and  revelation."  l  This  is  an  error,  he  says,  and  he 
refutes  this  error  (hie  error)  at  some  length.2 

That  fanatical  tendency  which  would  deny  to  natural  rea- 
son all  power,  whether  to  know  God,  or  in  general  to 
know  anything  with  certainty,  has  often  striven  to  spring 
up  in  the  Church,  but  has  always  been  repelled,  notably 
in  Luther,  Calvin,  Baius,  Quesnel,  and  more  recently  in 
Lamennais. 

"  Was  it  not  Luther,"  says  Erasmus,  "  who  wrote  that  all 
discipline,  practical  as  well  as  speculative,  is  damnable ; 
that  all  speculative  sciences  are  sins  and  errors  ? "  3  Luther 
denied  natural  reason  as  well  as  free  will. 

According  to  Calvin,  all  the  faculties  of  our  soul  are  wholly 
infected  by  evil.  Moral  freedom,  of  which  man  makes  his 
vain  boast,  is  but  a  chimera.  Man  of  himself  can  produce 
nought  save  vicious  acts  and  sins.  Thus  all  our  natural 
faculties  are  accursed.4 

According  to  Baius,  all  the  virtues  of  philosophers  are 
vices,  and  it  is  a  Pelagian  doctrine  not  to  admit  any  natural 
good,  —  that  is,  any  good  produced  by  the  unaided  powers 
of  nature,  and  by  the  sole  effort  of  philosophy.5 

Quesnel  claimed  that  any  knowledge  of  God,  even  natural, 
even  in  heathen  philosophy,  can  only  proceed  from  God  him- 
self, and  that,  without  grace,  it  produces  only  vanity,  pre- 
sumption, and  opposition  to  God.  6 

Lamennais  not  only  denied  that  reason  has  the  power  to 
know  certain  truths  relative  to  God,  he  went  so  far  as  to 
refuse  reason  the  power  of  asserting  with  certainty  our  own 
existence.  "  The  rational  certainty  of  our  isolated  existence," 
he  says,  "  would  suppose  as  equally  certain  the  certainty  of 
our  reason  and  even  its  infallibility  ;  for  to  affirm  that  we 

1  Contra  Gentes,  lib.  i.  cap.  xii.  *  Institut.,  book  iii.  ch.  ii. 

2  Ibid.,  lib.  i.  cap.  xii.  5  25-27,  Baii. 
8  Quoted  by  Perrone,  vol.  ii.  p,  1393.           6  41,  Quesnel. 


376  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

exist,  is  to  express  an  opinion,  and  if  it  were  possible  to  be 
mistaken  in  saying  /  exist,  we  should  not  be  rationally  cer- 
tain of  our  existence.  To  hold  that  every  man  possesses  an 
innate  rational  certainty  of  his  existence,  therefore,  is  to 
declare  that  we  accept  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  with  all 
its  consequences.  It  is  flinging  ourselves  into  the  midst  of 
the  inconveniences,  contradictions,  and  absurdities  inherent 
in  that  philosophy,  which  is  as  dangerous  as  it  is  stupid." 1 
Surprising  words,  which  fully  justify  Saint  Augustine's 
remark :  "  It  is  really  to  be  feared  that  some  may  come  to 
distrust  reason,  or  to  detest  it  to  the  point  of  rejecting  evi- 
dence itself."2 

We  know  that  this  system  has  been  completely  refuted 
by  Father  Eosaven,  with  irresistible  logic  arid  great  wealth 
of  learning.3 

Moreover,  all  these  Lutheran,  Calvinist,  and  Jansenist 
errors,  and  all  this  pseudo-Catholic  pyrrhonism,  which  sees 
nothing  but  the  wounds  and  sores  of  human  nature,  fails  to 
recognize  its  resources,  refuses  it  all  light  and  all  power,  and 
deprives  it  of  free  will  as  well  as  reason,  —  all  these  errors 
have,  in  all  times,  been  condemned  by  the  Church.  ,These 
sombre  doctrines,  as  has  been  observed,  are  allied  to  Mani- 
cheism.  Manicheism,  that  senseless  flattery  of  the  super- 
natural order,  taught  that  nature  is  the  work  of  Satan, 
that  the  order  of  grace  alone  is  good,  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment alone  is  true,  and  outside  it  and  before  it,  all  is  false 
and  bad,  —  even  the  Old  Testament,  even  natural  law,  its 
dogmas  and  precepts. 

The  least  traces  of  these  fundamental  errors  are  subver- 
sive, and  it  is  not  to  be  contested  that  the  war  upon  reason 


1  Defence  of  the  Essay,  p.  192. 

2  De  Magistro. 

3  Review  of  a  work  entitled,  "  Philosophic  Teachings  in  regard  to  Chris- 
tianity, by  J.  L.  Rosaven,  S.  J.     Avignon,  1833." 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      377 

is  an  insult  to  the  Word  of  God,  which  is  revealed  as  light 
enlightening  every  man  corning  into  the  world.  When  the 
Gospel  speaks  of  the  light  of  men,  that  light  of  men,  say  the 
commentaries,  which  are  accepted  by  Saint  Thomas,  is  reason. 
The  Church,  too,  has  never  ceased  to  watch  over  this  point, 
and  even  recently  (1849)  one  of  the  Provincial  Councils  of 
France,  revised  and  approved  by  the  Holy  See,  pointed  out 
the  error  of  writers  who,  "  in  order  to  aggrandize  faith,  de- 
preciate reason  excessively,  thereby  endangering  the  double 
foundation  of  reason  and  faith,  and  threatening  to  over- 
throw both." l  This  phenomenon  is  the  opposite  of  that  re- 
vealed by  the  history  of  sophists,  who,  attacking  faith  in  the 
name  of  reason,  end  by  denying  reason.  By  dint  of  attack- 
ing reason  in  the  name  of  faith,  faith  too  will  be  wrecked, 
as  the  Council  of  Kennes  declared. 

From  this  point  of  view  no  one  has  ever  fully  noted  and 
praised  the  part  played  by  the  Jesuits  in  the  history  of  Chris- 
tian philosophy,  and  the  way  in  which  their  imperturbable 
good  sense,  in  all  ages,  and  in  our  own  day,  has  always  placed 
them  in  the  foremost  rank  of  the  defenders  of  reason  and 
human  liberty.  And,  strange  to  say,  if  they  have  become 
unpopular,  it  is  particularly  because  they  upheld,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  cause  of  reason  and  liberty  against 
the  popularity  of  the  Jansenists.2 


V. 

In  general,  what  the  Church  reprobates  is  the  negation  of 
any  gift  of  God,  natural  or  supernatural. 

All  orthodox  theology  on  this  head  may  be  summed  up 
in  a  few  words  spoken  by  the  pious  and  learned  Cornelius 

1  Council  of  Rennes,  decree  Ixiii. 

2  See  also  the  contemporary  works  of  Fathers  Chastel,  Cahours,  Daniel,  etc. 


378  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

a  Lapide,  in  his  parallel  of  the  two  wisdoms,  —  human 
wisdom  by  reason,  divine  wisdom  by  grace  and  faith.1 

The  judicious  author  begins  by  exalting  the  first,  in  order 
to  put  the  second  higher  yet.  He  considers  sound  reason 
the  guide  of  human  life.2  God,  from  the  beginning,  gave 
man,  proportioning  it  to  his  nature,  a  noble  and  divine  law, 
the  expression  of  the  eternal  and  living  reasons  which  exist 
in  God.3  Only,  by  sin  this  wisdom  is  dimmed,  mingled 
with  errors  and  clouds,  is  deteriorated  in  many  things  (fu- 
cata,  nebulis  errorum  prcestrictct,  sopita  multis  in  rebus). 
This  is  our  reason,  the  source  of  natural  wisdom. 

But  "  if  the  profane  wisdom  of  philosophers  has  been  of  so 
much  use  and  glory  to  the  world,  of  how  much  greater  use 
and  glory  would  that  divine  and  sacred  wisdom  be,  which 
transcends  that  of  philosophers  as  much  as  faith  transcends 
wisdom,  grace  nature,  and  heaven  the  earth ! " 4  This  is 
true ;  the  fruits  of  reason,  even  in  antiquity,  are  good,  but 
those  of  grace  and  faith  surpass  them  immeasurably. 

"  Wisdom's  first  title  to  glory  is  its  origin.  The  origin  of 
natural  wisdom  is  nature,  that  is,  God,  in  so  far  as  he  is  and 
as  he  may  be  called  creative  nature,  author  and  master  of 
nature.  But  the  origin  of  supernatural  and  divine  wisdom 
is  God,  in  so  far  as  he  is  the  author  of  grace  and  of  all 
supernatural  goods."  5  Such  is  the  orthodox  point  of  view. 
We  have  already  proved  it  by  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas.  We 
will  now  show  it  by  an  even  greater  theological  authority. 

The  authority  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  whose  Theologic 
Sum  was  placed  in  the  Council  of  Trent  face  to  face  with 
Holy  Scripture,  would  be  the  highest  of  all  authorities,  did 
there  not  exist  a  book,  written  by  order  of  the  Council  of 
Trent,  to  be  distributed  throughout  the  world  as  the  com- 

1  Heading  of  Commentary  upon  Ecclesiasticus,  Antwerp,  1687. 

2  Rectamrationem  quasi  datam  sibi  a  Deo  facem,  sibique  vise  ac  vitae  ducem. 

3  Commentary  upon  Ecclesiasticus.  4  Ibid.  5  Ibid. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      379 

mon  catechism  of  Catholicism.  This  book,  written  princi- 
pally under  the  influence  of  Saint  Charles  Borromeo,  and 
published  by  Pius  V.,  is  called,  in  the  preface  to  the  work 
itself,  "the  work  of  the  Church  Universal"  (Universalis  opus 
Ecclesice).  Now,  this  is  the  beginning  of  that  (Ecumenical 
Catechism :  — 

"  Such  is  the  nature  of  the  soul  and  of  the  human  intelligence 
that,  although  it  may  have  discovered  for  itself,  by  diut  of  labor 
and  care,  many  truths  in  the  order  of  divine  things,  yet  the  greater 
part  of  those  truths  —  those  which  lead  to  eternal  salvation,  the 
end  for  which  God  created  man  in  his  own  image  —  cannot  be 
seen  by  reason  or  known  by  natural  light  alone. 

"  The  invisible  perfections  of  God,  as  the  Apostle  teaches,  his 
eternal  power  and  his  divinity,  are  visible  to  the  intelligence 
through  the  spectacle  of  created  things;  but  the  hidden  Mystery, 
known  neither  to  the  ages  nor  the  generations,  so  far  transcends 
human  intelligence  that  had  it  not  been  manifested  to  the  saints, 
to  whom  God  by  the  gift  of  faith  has  revealed  the  riches  and 
glory  of  his  new  alliance  with  men,  no  human  effort  could  have 
attained  that  mystery,  that  wisdom  which  is  Jesus  Christ." 

This  is  the  beginning  of  the  Roman  Catechism.  Farther 
on,  in  the  body  of  the  work,  we  find  a  complete  parallel 
established  between  reason  and  faith.  We  need  only  quote 
it,  reminding  all  Catholics  that  this  is  their  catechism,  as  all 
supreme  Pontiffs  for  three  centuries  back  have  given  it  to 
the  entire  Church.  Here  is  the  parallel : l  — 

"  The  great  difference  between  Christian  philosophy  and  that 
of  the  age  lies  in  the  fact  that  this  latter,  guided  by  natural  light 
alone,  taking  as  its  starting-point  visible  things  and  the  opera- 
tions of  God,  only  rises  to  the  comprehension  of  the  invisible 
perfections  of  God  by  slow  degrees,  with  difficulty,  after  long 
labor,  and  thus  arrives  at  the  knowledge  that  God  exists,  and 
that  he  is  the  First  Cause  and  Author  of  all  things.  But  faith, 
on  the  contrary,  so  elevates  and  strengthens  the  vision  of  the  aoul 

1  De  Symbolo  Fidei,  cap.  ii.  6,  7. 


380  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

that  it  enters  heaven  without  effort,  is  there  bathed  in  the  light 
of  God,  is  able  at  first  to  contemplate  the  actual  source  of  eternal 
light,  then  all  created  things  in  that  source  ;  so  that  the  soul 
knows  by  experience,  as  the  prince  of  the  Apostles  says,  that  it  is 
called  to  the  admirable  light  of  God,  and  it  shudders  with  bliss  in 
its  faith. 

"God  inhabits,  says  the  Apostle,  inaccessible  light,  which  no 
man  sees  or  can  see.  Our  soul,  to  reach  the  sublimity  of  God, 
must  be  freed  from  the  senses.  This  is  impossible  in  the  present 
life  by  the  unaided  forces  of  nature. 

"  Nevertheless,  God  has  not  at  any  time  left  man  without  tes- 
timony of  himself;  he  has  filled  the  world  with  good  things,  says 
the  Apostle;  he  has  given  the  heaven  its  dew,  the  earth  its 
fruitfulness,  to  all  that  lives  its  nourishment,  to  the  heart  of  man 
its  joy.  And  this  is  what  teaches  philosophers  to  attribute  noth- 
ing low  to  the  majesty  of  God ;  to  remove  from  his  idea  everything 
material,  all  gross  mixture  ;  to  attribute  to  him  all  good  and  all 
virtue,  in  a  perfect  degree ;  to  conceive  him  as  the  living  and 
inexhaustible  source  of  all  goodness,  of  all  quality,  whence  all 
perfection  flows  for  his  creatures ;  to  call  him  wise,  the  friend  of 
truth,  the  principle  of  virtue,  and  to  give  him  other  names  which 
presuppose  supreme  and  absolute  perfection ;  finally,  to  call  him 
immense,  infinite  in  his  greatness,  his  power,  and  his  action. 

"  Such  are  the  great  features  of  the  knowledge  of  God,  truly 
conformed  to  the  nature  of  God  and  to  the  authority  of  Holy 
Scripture,  which  philosophy  has  discovered  in  the  contemplation 
of  nature  (investigatione  cognoveruni) .  And  yet  upon  this  same 
point  we  recognize  the  necessity  of  divine  instruction,  if  we 
note  that  faith  not  only  gives,  as  has  been  already  stated,  to  the 
simplest  and  most  ignorant,  instantly  and  clearly,  knowledge 
which  sages  only  obtained  with  time  and  effort,  but  that  it  also 
imprints  upon  the  soul  a  purer  and  more  certain  knowledge  than 
if  the  intelligence  had  acquired  it  by  the  labor  of  human  thought ; 
moreover,  that  the  light  of  faith  opens  to  believers  another  order  of 
divine  knowledge  which  the  spectacle  of  nature  could  never  give." 

This  then  is  the  teaching  of  the  universal  catechism.  The 
whole  question  is  here  treated,  regulated,  and  judged. 

Our  reason  can  by  itself  (ipsa  per  se)  discover  (investigare, 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      381 

investigatione  cognoscere)  many  truths  touching  the  knowl- 
edge of  God,  his  existence,  his  perfections,  and  his  infinity 
(bonorum  omnium  perfectam  vim  .  .  .  immensam  et  infinitam 
virtutem).  As  for  the  other  order  of  divine  truths,  those 
which  relate  to  eternal  life,  reason,  by  natural  light  alone, 
can  effect  nothing. 

Eeason  in  one  sense  sees  God,  it  contemplates  him  (invisi- 
bilia  Dei  contemplatur),  but  it  is  only  through  his  acts 
(ab  effectibus) ;  it  sees  him  in  the  things  created  by  him  (ex 
rerum  effectarum  investigatione).  This  is  an  indirect  vision.1 
Christian  wisdom,  on  the  contrary  (Christiana  philosophia), 
whose  principle  is  faith,  enters  heaven  and  contemplates  the 
source  itself  of  eternal  light  (ceternum  ipsum  luminisfontem)  ; 
our  mind  attains  to  God  himself  (ut  mens  nostra  ad  Deum 
perveniat),  which  is  impossible  in  this  life  by  the  mere 
forces  of  nature  (cujus  rei  facultatem  in  hac  vita  natu- 
raliter  non  habemus).  This  therefore  is  the  direct  vision, 
knowledge  of  the  source. 

Once  again,  such  is  the  teaching  of  Catholic  theology  in 
all  ages  upon  this  subject. 

There  is  no  motive  for,  arid  there  is  no  possibility  of, 
ranking  reason  either  higher  or  lower,  whether  we  rely  upon 
reason  or  upon  faith. 

VI. 

We  have  just  seen  that,  according  to  Saint  Thomas  Aqui- 
nas and  all  orthodox  theologians,  and,  finally,  according  to 
the  greatest  of  all  theological  authorities,  the  catechism  of 
the  Council  of  Trent,  natural  reason,  even  in  the  individual, 
has  capabilities,  possesses  its  own  certainty,  and,  by  its  own 
unaided  effort,  discovers  and  demonstrates  truths  known  to 
theologians  as  preambles  of  faith,  which  form  one  of  the  two 
orders  of  the  divine  intelligibleness. 

1  Billuart,  Dissert.,  i.  art.  ii.  Utrum  sit  Deus  ? 


382  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

But  there  are  limits  set  by  theologians  to  the  power  of 
reason  even  in  the  order  of  these  natural  truths  which  form 
its  proper  domain. 

Saint  Thomas,  who  so  vigorously  upholds  the  natural 
power  of  reason,  nevertheless  recognizes  the  evident  limita- 
tions and  weaknesses  of  which  we  all  give  testimony.  He 
asserts  that  if  men  had  no  means  save  reason  for  attaining  a 
knowledge  of  God,  even  in  that  of  the  two  intelligible  orders 
to  which  reason  can  attain,  three  things  would  result.1 
"  First,  few  men  would  acquire  a  knowledge  of  God.  Second, 
this  small  number  of  privileged  philosophers  would  attain 
that  knowledge  only  after  much  labor.  Third,  as  error 
most  frequently  slips  into  the  researches  of  human  reason, 
truths,  even  rigorously  demonstrated,  would  still  leave  doubts 
in  the  mind,  "because,  we  do  not  know  the  force  of  demonstra- 
tion, and  because  we  actually  see  so  many  various  systems." 

These  statements  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  require  no 
proofs ;  they  are  but  the  simple  expression  of  what  every 
one  knows  and  sees  in  himself,  around  him,  and  in  the 
history  of  the  human  mind. 

Now,  there  is,  in  regard  to  what  natural  reason  can  and 
cannot  do,  a  very  simple  theological  distinction,  but  whose 
profundity,  I  hope,  we  shall  understand.  Human,  natural 
reason,  without  special  help  of  grace,  can  do  something,  but 
it  cannot  do  everything,  even  in  the  natural  order  of  truths. 
This  theology  was  formulated  as  follows :  "  Fallen  man  may, 
without  the  special  help  of  grace,  know  certain  truths  of  the 
natural  order.  The  grace  of  God  is  essential  to  fallen  man 
for  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  truths  of  the  natural  order." 
The  first  of  these  propositions  is  evident.  The  second  is 
what  Bossuet  expresses  so  well  in  this  fine  phrase :  "  Human 
wisdom  always  falls  short  somewhere."  Fenelon  in  his  turn 
elaborates  it  thus :  "  Men,  as  an  author  of  our  day  has  very 

1  Contra  Gentes,  1.  i.  c.  iv. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND   FAITH.      383 

aptly  observed,  have  not  sufficient  strength  to  follow  out  all 
their  reason.  Thus  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  no  man,  with- 
out grace,  could  have,  of  his  own  unaided  natural  powers,  all 
the  constancy,  all  the  regularity,  all  the  moderation,  all  the 
distrust  of  self,  requisite  for  the  discovery  of  those  very 
truths  which  do  not  call  for  the  higher  light  of  faith,  —  in  a 
word,  that  natural  philosophy  which  would  move,  without 
prejudice,  without  impatience,  without  pride,  to  the  final  end 
of  human  reason,  is  a  romance  of  philosophy.  I  reckon  upon 
grace  alone  to  guide  reason,  even  in  the  narrow  confines  of 
reason,  to  the  discovery  of  true  religion."  This,  therefore, 
is  clearly  understood,  and  will  be,  moreover,  developed 
further  on. 

VII. 

There  is,  therefore,  a  fixed  and  precise  limit  to  the  power 
of  purely  natural  reason.  Reason,  of  itself,  may  do  some- 
thing, but  it  cannot  do  everything,  even  in  the  order  of 
natural  truth.  By  the  nature  of  things,  the  sum  total  of 
truths  escapes  it. 

But,  yet  once  again,  it  may  do  something ;  it  has  its  own 
certainty ;  it  discovers,  it  demonstrates,  with  certainty,  and 
knows,  up  to  a  certain  point,  several  natural  truths,  such  as 
the  existence  of  God,  his  attributes,  the  moral  freedom  and 
spirituality  of  the  soul. 

Nevertheless,  we  must  fully  agree  as  to  what  natural  rea- 
son, sound  reason  is,  if  we  would  avoid  falling  into  that 
error  which  is  known  as  rationalism.  We  must  be  on  our 
guard  against  the  sophistic  ignorance  which  regards  reason 
as  independent  of  God  and  men,  and  as  dependent  on  the 
individual  alone. 

In  the  first  place,  nothing  in  man  is  independent.  His 
very  being,  his  actual  being,  depends  on  God,  as  well  as  his 
life,  his  reason,  and  all  his  faculties.  This  all  true  philoso- 


384  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

phers  know;  all,  we  have  seen,  agree  with  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas,  and  declare  that  reason  depends  on  the  light  of  God. 
"Eternal  wisdom,"  says  Saint  Augustine,  "  ceaseth  not  for  an 
instant  to  speak  to  the  rational  creature ; "  and  this  constant 
and  natural  speech  of  God  within  us,  is  reason.  The  light 
of  men,  as  the  Gospel  calls  the  Word  which  enlightens  every 
man  coming  into  the  world,  is  the  source  of  reason.  Let 
us  not  forget  this  point,  for  we  shall  see  its  consequences. 

More  yet.  As  an  actual  fact,  how  does  reason  wake  in 
every  man  ?  The  Word  of  God  in  the  soul  is  the  true 
source  of  reason ;  also,  in  reality,  the  potential  reason  in 
every  new-born  man  is  roused  by  the  speech  of  other  men, 
by  the  expression  of  their  already  formed  reason.  Man, 
created  rational,  develops  the  germs  of  his  reason,  at  first 
because  God  speaks  to  him  inwardly  in  the  natural  light 
which  he  causes  to  shine  upon  his  soul :  this  is  the  doctrine 
of  Saint  Thomas ;  and,  furthermore,  because  the  human 
race,  by  articulate  speech,  warns  him  —  this  is  the  expres- 
*sion  of  Saint  Augustine  —  actually  to  hear  the  truth  which 
he  is  capable  of  hearing. 

So  that  reason  is  developed,  in  every  man,  in  the  same 
way  as  faith,  according  to  what  Catholic  theology  teaches  in 
regard  to  the  development  of  faith. 

Faith  comes  primarily  from  God,  it  is  a  gift  of  God  (ex 
interiore  instinctu  Dei) ;  it  is  a  supernatural  light  which 
man  refuses  or  accepts  at  will.  Secondly,  according  to  Saint 
Paul,  faith  cometh  by  hearing  (fides  ex  auditu). 

"  Faith,"  says  Saint  Thomas,  "  comes  chiefly  by  this  diffused 
light  (fides  principaliter  ex  infusione) ;  but  as  for  its  determina- 
tion, it  cometh  by  the  hearing."  *  "  Two  things  are  needful  for 
faith,  of  which  one  is  the  inclination  of  the  heart,  which  cometh 
not  by  hearing,  but  by  grace  ;  the  other  is  the  determination  of 
the  articles  of  faith,  which  cometh  by  hearing."2 

i  4  d.  q.  2,  2.  2  Epist  ad  Rom   x  lect  2> 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      385 

Thus  God  inspires  within,  God's  Church  speaks  without ; 
and  under  this  double  influence  free  man  accepts  or  rejects 
this  light,  by  a  simultaneous  act  of  intelligence  and  will. 

So,  too,  with  reason.  It  is,  as  it  were,  a  luminous  germ 
which  God  implants  in  every  man;  but  articulate  speech, 
supervening  from  without,  develops  the  germ. 

Only,  it  is  very  plain  that  in  both  cases  the  luminous 
germ  which  God  sows  in  the  soul  is  the  chief  element. 
Faith  comes  chiefly  by  the  diffused  light  (fides  principaliter 
ex  infusione*).  This  light  of  grace  is  properly  the  principle 
of  faith.  And  as  for  reason,  Saint  Augustine  and  Saint 
Thomas  point  out  in  an  admirable  manner  how  adherence 
to  the  truth,  the  very  foundation  of  certainty,  comes  from 
this  inward  light,  by  which  God  renders  us  rational. 

"  Go  not  without,  enter  into  thine  own  self,"  says  Saint  Augus- 
tine ;  "  it  is  in  the  inner  man  that  truth  dwells  ! "  *  "  In  all  that 
the  intelligence  hears,  what  the  mind  consults  is  not  the  word 
which  echoes  without,  it  is  the  truth  which  presides  within ;  the 
word,  perhaps,  warns  us  to  consult  that  truth  which  presides 
within."2 

"The  assurance  of  knowledge  and  intelligence,"  says  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas,  "  comes  from  the  evidence  itself  of  that  which 
is  called  certain."  8  "  It  is  natural  light  that  gives  our  soul  the 
assurance  of  that  which  it  knows  in  that  light,  —  as,  for  example, 
the  first  principles."4  "The  assurance  of  what  we  know,  there- 
fore, comes  from  the  light  of  reason,  inwardly  given  to  man  by 
God,  and  by  which  God  speaks  in  us ;  it  does  not  come  from  the 
man  who  speaks  to  us  from  without,  save  in  so  far  as  instruction 
refers  conclusions  to  their  principles,  —  which,  moreover,  would 
give  us  no  certain  knowledge,  if  we  had  not  in  advance  the  assur- 
ance of  those  principles  to  which  the  conclusions  are  referred."  5 

And  this  rational  assurance,  according  to  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas,  is  entire.  "  There  is,"  he  says,  "  a  certain  basis  of 

1  De  vera  Relig.,  chap,  xxxix.  4  Contra  Gentes,  book  ii.  chap.  cliv. 

2  De  Magistro,  chap.  ii.  18.  5  De  Verit.,  qusest.  ii.  art.  i. 
8  3  d.  q.  art.  ii.  q.  3. 

25 


386  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

truth,  with  which  no  semblance  of  error  can  be  mingled,  — 
for  instance,  in  first  principles." l 

Therefore,  with  reason  as  with  faith,  the  chief  part  is 
always  the  inward  light  given  by  God,  supernatural  and 
natural  alike. 

Bossuet  felicitously  compares,  upon  this  head,  the  genera- 
tion of  reason  to  that  of  faith. 

"  We  must  not  imagine,"  he  says,  u  that  children,  in  whom 
reason  is  beginning  to  appear,  because  they  cannot  arrange  and 
systematize  their  reasonings,  are  therefore  incapable  of  feeling  the 
impressions  of  truth.  We  see  them  learn  to  talk  at  a  still  earlier 
age ;  how  they  learn  this,  how  they  distinguish  between  noun  and 
verb,  substantive  and  adjective,  they  neither  know,  nor  can  we 
•who  have  methodically  learned  it  clearly  explain  it,  so  deeply 
hidden  is  it.  We  learn  the  language  of  the  Church  in  much  the 
same  way.  A  secret  light  leads  us  to  it,  in  one  estate  as  in  the  other, 
—  there  t  in  reason;  here,  in  faith.  Reason  is  developed  little  by 
little,  and  faith  infused  by  baptism  does  the  same."2 

Thus  in  both  cases  there  is  a  secret  light  at  the  bottom  of 
the  soul,  —  in  the  one  case,  in  reason ;  in  the  other,  in  faith. 
This  light,  in  both  cases,  is  the  chief  element.  Then  the 
language  of  mankind  develops  the  germ  of  reason,  and  the 
words  of  the  Church  develop  the  germ  of  faith. 

Three  things  are  essential  for  the  development  of  reason. 
We  must  have  the  soul,  capable  of  knowing ;  we  must  have 
God,  sole  source  of  light,  shedding  his  light  upon  the  mirror 
of  the  soul,  which  at  first  is  incapable  of  seeing  it,  as  the 
eyes  of  the  new-born  child  do  not  see  the  light  of  the  sun  ; 
then  mankind  intervenes  with  speech,  and  the  expression  of 
reason  already  formed,  which  stimulates  the  soul  to  see,  and 
develops,  by  a  most  mysterious  generation,  the  obscure  germ 
of  reason. 

Thus  reason  is  developed.     Is  it  absolutely  impossible  for 

l  2  d.  25,  art.  20.  2  Conv.  with  Claude. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      387 

it  to  be  developed  otherwise  ?  Cannot  God  arouse  it  by  his 
own  unaided  purpose,  without  the  help  of  the  words  of  ra- 
tional and  talking  man  ?  It  would  be,  to  say  the  least,  bold 
to  assert  this ;  or  rather,  it  is  plain  that  we  cannot  assert  it, 
since,  as  an  actual  fact,  God  alone  developed  reason  in  the 
first  man,  even  as,  according  to  Saint  Thomas  and  all  theol- 
ogy, God  can,  of  himself  alone,  and  without  the  word  of  the 
Church,  develop  faith  by  revelation  in  an  isolated  man. 

But  let  us  confine  ourselves  to  stating  here  that,  save  for 
exceptions,  such  is  the  law.  Individual  reason  is  not  in 
man  an  absolute  and  independent  power,  invariable,  immu- 
table, self-subsisting,  equal  and  identical  in  all ;  it  depends, 
on  the  contrary,  in  its  principle  and  in  its  development,  in 
its  source  and  in  its  course,  not  only  upon  ourselves,  but 
upon  God  and  the  human  race.  Men  impose  upon  us  from 
the  beginning,  by  the  communication  of  language,  a  sort  of 
ready  made  reason,  more  or  less  developed,  more  or  less  pure, 
but  which  contains  necessarily  all  the  essential  elements  of 
reason ;  they  form  us  from  without,  while  God  unceasingly 
stimulates  within  us  the  living  source  of  original,  certain, 
eternal,  infallible  reason  ;  and  beneath  these  influences,  the 
free  and  rational  soul,  according  to  its  ardor  or  its  sluggish- 
ness, its  indifference  or  eagerness  for  light,  its  absorption  or 
its  effusion,  clings  more  or  less  closely  either  to  this  original 
source,  to  this  ready  made  reason,  to  its  essential  elements, 
or  to  its  bastard  developments. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  can  readily  define  sound  rea- 
son, and  perverse,  corrupt  reason,  —  in  other  words,  the  true 
philosophic  tendency,  and  its  opposite.  We  can  take  a  new 
and  very  important  step  in  this  study  of  reason  compared 
with  faith,  and  in  this  analysis  of  the  two  degrees  of  the  divine 
intelligible  we  shall  better  understand  the  progress  of  the 
mind  towards  both,  and  what  we  call  the  effort  towards 
total  wisdom. 


388  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 


VIIL 

Man's  law  is  this  :  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart,  with  all  thy  soul,  with  all  thy  mind,  and 
with  all  thy  strength."  This  is  the  first  commandment ;  and 
the  second,  which  the  Gospel  says  is  like  unto  it,  is  this  : 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 

I  say  that  this  double  precept,  which  is  the  law  for  the 
entire  man,  also  contains  the  law  of  reason,  and  shows  us 
wherein  it  is  sound  and  wherein  it  is  corrupt. 

In  point  of  fact,  rational  and  free  man,  placed  between 
God,  the  Father  and  Source  of  reason,  and  humanity,  which 
may  perhaps  be  called  the  mother  of  reason,  should  fulfil 
this  law  in  order  to  maintain  his  reason  sound  and  sane, 
instead  of  perverting  it.  Is  not  this  manifest  ?  So  soon  as 
the  individual  learns  to  despise  humanity,  in  so  far  as  the 
nurse  and  mother  of  his  intelligence,  to  consider  himself 
greater  than  it  and  its  tradition ;  so  soon  as  he  ceases  to  love 
with  all  his  heart  and  with  all  his  soul  the  charm  of  the 
desirable  and  intelligible,  the  inner  and  enduring  voice  of 
God,  the  source  whence  light  comes  to  him,  —  just  so  soon 
that  man  begins  to  corrupt  and  pervert  his  reason.  Whether, 
intrenching  himself  more  and  more  closely  in  moral  and 
intellectual  egotism,  that  man  thus  renders  himself  ever 
more  and  more  incapable,  I  cannot  affirm  positively,  but  I 
feel  at  least  that  the  source  of  his  reason  is  far  above  him, 
and  consequently  that  the  mind  should  hearken  and  obey 
humbly  ;  if  he  become  accustomed  to  profane  that  source,  as 
being  merely  himself  and  dependent  merely  on  himself ;  if, 
which  is  more  serious,  he  defiantly  enter  that  source  which, 
nevertheless,  is  still  divine ;  if  he  contend  with  light,  and 
seek  malignly 1  for  proofs  of  light  and  demonstration  of  evi- 

1  Insidiose.  —  Eccli.  xxxii.  20. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      389 

dence ;  if  he  take  upon  himself  the  mission  of  constructing 
evidence,  of  creating  light  by  his  own  acts,  instead  of  receiv- 
ing it  as  the  inspiration  of  his  acts ;  if  he  desire  to  make 
himself  in  some  sort  the  author  of  his  own  reason,  by  taking 
up  his  position  above  first  principles,  instead  of  placing  him- 
self below  them,  —  if,  I  say,  a  man  enter  upon  this  path,  he 
has  already  acquired  "  that  evil  heart  of  unbelief "  of  which 
Saint  Paul  speaks,1  which  departs  from  the  "living  God." 
That  soul,  in  the  exercise  of  its  reason,  no  longer  depends 
upon  the  divine  source  of  reason;  in  it,  fallible  reason, 
which  receives  and  errs,  as  Fenelon  says,  has  parted  from 
the  immutable  reason  which  gives,  lifts  up,  and  illumines ; 
in  brief,  that  mind  has  departed  from  the  living  God. 

That  soul,  therefore,  as  Scripture  says,  is  plucked  up  ly  the 
roots,  twice  dead.2  Not  only  it  has  not  advanced  from  reason 
towards  faith,  not  taken  root  in  supernatural  light,  but  it 
has  broken  off,  as  far  «as  in  it  lay,  the  natural  root  of  the 
light  of  God ;  it  has  lost  that  faith,  that  innate  faith,  the 
principle  of  reason,  of  which  theology  and  philosophy  speak. 
And  this  very  thing  is  the  origin  of  the  great  sophistical  ten- 
dency whose  excesses  and  follies,  in  all  ages,3  have  soiled  the 
history  of  the  human  mind,  and  which  is  precisely  reason  re- 
versed, philosophy  inverted.  And,  indeed,  the  attempt  to 
reject  God  instead  of  seeking  him,  the  attempt  to  conquer 
light  instead  of  yielding  to  it,  the  desire  to  prove  evidence  by 
reasoning  instead  of  throwing  light  on  reasoning  by  evidence ; 

1  Hebrews  iii.  12. 

2  Jude  12. 

8  In  all  ages  we  encounter  the  efforts  and  eccentricities  of  perverse  reason. 
But  it  is  remarkable  that  a  complete  development,  theoretical  and  practical,  of 
sophistry,  properly  so  called,  forming  a  school,  and  taking  the  absurd  as  its 
principle,  has  occurred  only  twice  in  the  intellectual  history  of  the  western 
world,  —  first,  in  the  time  of  Gorgias,  and  again  in  our  own  day,  by  the  work 
of  Hegel.  We  see  the  remains  of  it  in  the  wretched  sect  of  atheists  and  soph- 
ists, now  (1864)  the  scorn  of  French  literature,  and  whom  I  have  made  known 
in  a  book  entitled  "Sophists  and  Criticism." 


390  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

the  habit  of  rendering  unknown  that  which  is  known,  instead 
of  moving  from  the  vision  of  that  which  is  known  to  that 
which  is  unknown ;  the  incredible  mania  for  aspiring  to  dig 
under  the  roots  to  divide  them  from  the  earth,  instead  of 
rising  with  them  to  their  fruits,  —  is  not  all  this  precisely 
the  opposite  to  the  rational  procedure  ?  Now,  those  who  are 
acquainted  with  the  history  of  philosophy  know  that  all  this 
is  practised  and  has  always  been  practised.  And  why  ?  Be- 
cause some  souls  do  not  observe  in  the  intellectual  order  the 
law  which  obliges  us  to  love  God  more  than  all  things  else, 
and  our  neighbors  as  ourselves.  The  mind,  with  secret  and 
habitual  pride,  thoughtless  though  it  often  be,  desires  to  rise 
above  humanity  and  above  God.  This  is  an  overturning,  an 
inversion,  of  all  things.  It  is  an  imitation  of  Satan's  sin,  and 
it  is  the  source  of  the  devilish  wisdom l  of  which  Saint  James 
speaks,  which  is  nothing  but  an  effort  in  a  direction  contrary 
to  wisdom,  a  task  undertaken  in  aversion  from  God. 

Reason  in  a  man,  therefore,  sometimes  learns  to  doubt  its 
own  origin ;  and  again  it  goes  so  far  as  to  break,  with  its  first 
principle. 

We  find  in  a  contemporary  philosopher  vigorous  descrip- 
tions of  these  two  degrees  of  intellectual  ruin.  These  quota- 
tions will  better  explain  to  the  reader  the  reality  of  this 
frightful  state.  " We  believe"  says  Jouffroy,  " that  is  a  fact ; 
but  have  we  any  reason  to  believe  what  we  believe  ?  Is  that 
which  we  regard  as  truth  really  truth?  This  universe  which 
surrounds  us,  these  laws  which  seem  to  us  to  govern  it,  and 
which  we  torture  ourselves  to  discover,  that  powerful,  wise, 
and  just  Cause  which,  on  the  faith  of  our  reason,  we  attribute 
to  it;  those  principles  of  good  and  ill  which  humanity  re- 
spects, and  which  seems  to  us  the  law  of  the  moral  world,  — 
may  not  all  this  be  an  illusion,  a  consequent  dream,  and  hu- 
manity with  all  this,  and  we  who  dream  that  dream,  like  all 

1  James  iii.  17. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     391 

the  rest  ?     Fearful  question,  terrible  doubt,  which  rises  in  the 
loiiely  thought  of  every  man  who  reflects  ! " l 

Whence  we  see  that  he  who  describes  this  doubt,  shared  in 
it  himself,  at  least  at  times,  since  he  elsewhere  calls  "  a  strange 
illusion,  that  of  modern  philosophers  who  still  persist  in  solv- 
ing the  impossible  problem  of  absolute  truth,  and  in  dissipat- 
ing by  means  of  the  human  mind  a  doubt  which,  striking  the 
human  mind  itself,  can  never  be  destroyed."  2 

But  this  is  how  the  same  thinker  describes  the  intellectual 
state  which  supervenes  when  we  overcome  that  doubt  by  ne- 
gation, by  the  supposition  that  no  absolute  truth  exists.  "  If 
our  lips,"  he  says,  "  can  state  this  hypothesis,  our  intelligence 
cannot  comprehend  it.  For  if  certain  things  exist,  they  exist 
in  a  certain  manner,  and  there  are  certain  relations  between 
them ;  it  is  therefore  absolutely  true  that  they  exist,  that  they 
exist  in  such  manner,  and  that  there  are  such  relations  be- 
tween them.  If,  on  the  contrary,  nothing  exists,  it  is  abso- 
lutely true  that  nothing  exists.  In  order  that  absolute  truth 
should  not  exist,  certain  things  therefore  must  both  exist  and 
not  exist  at  one  and  the  same  time ;  they  must  have  and  not 
have  at  one  and  the  same  time  certain  modes  of  existence ; 
and  there  must  be  and  not  be  at  one  and  the  same  time  certain 
relations  between  them,  —  which  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
If  everything  exists,  there  is  absolute  truth ;  if  nothing  ex- 
ists, there  is  still  absolute  truth.  Whoever  denies  that  there 
is  absolute  truth,  denies  at  once  reality  and  nonentity,  or 
rather  affirms  the  co-existence  of  these  two  things.  The  tongue 
itself  refuses  to  express  such  an  absurdity ;  it  is  forced  to 
make  that  which  is  the  opposite  of  existence,  nonentity,  ex- 
ist!"3 Jouffroy  did  not  suspect  that,  while  he  wrote  thus, 
all  these  absurdities,  or  rather  these  delirious  ravings,  were 

1  Jouffroy,  Philosopb.  Miscell.,  2d  edit.  p.  187. 

2  Preface  to  Reid's  Works,  pp.  190-192. 

8  Jouffroy,  Philosoph.  Miscell.,  2d  edit.  p.  210. 


392  GUIDE  TO  TEE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

literally  taught  in  Germany  by  Hegel,  and  that  the  most 
learned  of  all  nations  accepted  that  teaching. 

Eeason,  therefore,  may  be  corrupted  among  men  in  conse- 
quence of  that  evil  heart  of  unbelief  which  breaks  with  the 
living  God  and  with  collective  mankind,  and  which  thus 
parts  the  mind  from  its  proper  principle  and  its  necessary 
root. 

This  is  corrupt  reason.     Then  what  is  sound  reason  ? 

Sound  reason  is  that  of  the  man  who,  receiving,  like  every 
other  mind,  the  light  which  enlightens  all,  practises  the  law 
in  regard  to  that  reason-God,  as  Bossuet  says ;  in  other  words, 
loves  it,  and  seeks  it  with  all  his  strength.  Sound  reason  is 
the  reason  of  the  man  doing  all  that  he  can,  in  the  mystery 
of  the  soul  and  of  conscience,  to  surrender  self  to  divine  rea- 
son, its  principle  and  source. 

But  wherein  precisely  does  this  surrender  consist,  which 
conjoins  us,  in  the  natural  order,  to  the  living  God  ? 

This  must  be  studied  in  detail. 


CHAPTER  III. 

RELATIONS   BETWEEN   REASON   AND  FAITH  (Continued). 

WE  must  know  that,  even  in  the  natural  order,  there 
exists  a  sort  of  faith  which,  by  its  inward  authority, 
imposes  assent  upon  our  mind.  There  is  an  intellectual 
conscience,  as  there  is  a  moral  conscience ;  and  just  as  the 
voice  of  the  moral  conscience  is  that  of  God,  the  voice  of  this 
intellectual  conscience  is  also  that  of  God.  This  point  is 
of  such  prime  importance  that  we  cannot  dwell  upon  it 
too  long. 

Let  us  see  upon  what  theology,  on  the  one  hand,  and  phi- 
losophy, on  the  other,  support  themselves  in  affirming  the 
existence  of  natural  faith. 

We  read  in  the  Scriptures  these  remarkable  words :  "  In 
every  good  work  trust  thy  own  soul  with  faith ;  for  this  is 
the  keeping  of  the  commandments.  He  that  believeth  in  the 
Lord  taketh  heed  to  the  commandment." 1 

Clearly  this  does  not  refer  to  the  faith  whose  principle  is 
supernatural  light,  and  whose  rule  is  the  Catholic  Church ; 
it  refers  to  that  faith  whose  primary  cause  is  natural  light, 
which  enlightens  all  men  in  their  conscience  and  reason. 

The  sacred  text,  say  the  commentators,  does  not  allude 
here  to  theological  faith,  to  Christian  supernatural  faith 
(fides  supernaturalis  Christiana),  but  to  that  which  is  the 
practical  dictate  of  conscience  (fides  quce  est  practicum  con- 
scientice  dictamen),  which  may  also  be  called  moral  faith, 
particular  practical  faith  (fides  moralis  et  particulars 
1  Ecclesiasticus  xxxii.  27,  28. 


394  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

practica),  or  the  firm  trust  of  the  soul  in  God  (certa  animi 
fiducia  in  Deo).  As  for  theological  faith,  we  cannot  say  of 
it :  "  Follow  with  faith  the  movements  of  thy  soul,  trust  iky 
own  soul  with  faith  (crede  ex  fide  animce  tuce)."  The  object 
of  theological  faith  is  very  God  and  God  alone,  not  the  soul ; 
while  natural  faith,  the  primary  cause  of  reason,  is  addressed 
to  the  soul  enlightened  of  God.  It  is  an  indirect  faith  in 
God. 

Such  is  also  the  meaning  of  Saint  Paul's  words :  "  What- 
soever is  not  of  faith  is  sin  (omne  autem  quod  non  estex  fide 
peccatum  est)."  The  Church  herself  has  decided  this  point, 
for  she  condemned  this  proposition  of  Baius  :  "All  the  works 
of  the  infidel  [that  is,  of  those  who  have  not  supernatural 
Christian  faith]  are  sins." 1  Saint  Paul,  as  is  also  shown  by 
the  context,  does  not,  therefore,  refer  to  supernatural  Christian 
faith  when  he  says,  "  Whatsoever  is  not  of  faith  is  sin." 
Accordingly,  he  evidently  referred  to  that  natural  faith 
whose  primary  cause  is  the  voice  of  God  in  the  conscience 
and  reason. 

Theologians  often  speak  of  natural  faith  under  other 
names.  When  the  Scriptures  say,  "  The  wise  man  belie veth 
in  the  law  of  the  Lord ; "  and  again,  "  The  fool  saith  in  his 
heart/There  is  no  God,"  —  it  is  clear  that  the  words  wise  and 
fool  signify  the  soul  which  has  or  has  not  that  faith.  So 
when  Saint  Augustine  says :  "  We  have  in  the  inward  man 
another  sense  far  more  sublime  than  the  outward  sense,  it 
is  that  which  teaches  us  to  discern  between  the  just  and  the 
unjust;"  it  is  plain  that  he  alludes  to  what  Perrone  calls 
"  The  faith  which  is  the  practical  dictate  of  the  conscience." 
It  is  also  clear  that  this  latter  theologian  has  in  view  the 
same  inward  fact  when,  speaking  of  feeling  in  general,  he 
expresses  himself  thus:  "We  do  not  intend  to  refuse  man 
those  feelings  which  the  beneficent  hand  of  the  Creator  has 

1  Omnia  opera  infideliura  sunt  peccata.  —  35  Baii. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     395 

placed  in  the  heart  of  man  to  lead  him  more  readily  and 
gently  to  truth,  justice,  and  order.  We  admit  a  rational 
sense  (sensum  rationalem),  which  impels  the  mind  to  truth 
and  enjoys  it.  We  admit  a  moral  sense,  which,  by  its  nature, 
approves  that  which  is  just  and  virtuous  in  itself,  takes  pleas- 
ure in  it,  condemns  and  detests  evil.  We  admit  a  sense  of  the 
beautiful,  which  teaches  man  to  love  and  enjoy  all  order  and 
all  beauty.  He  who  would  tear  from  the  human  heart  this 
triple  sense  which  God  himself  has  placed  in  it,  and  which  is 
born  of  that  general  and  unconquerable  charm  of  the  desira- 
able  and  intelligible  which  never  quits  the  soul,  —  that  man 
would  mutilate  human  nature  and  deprive  it  of  its  most 
essential  element."  1 

This  sense  which  the  charm  of  the  desirable  and  intelli- 
gible, identical  with  God,  awakens  in  us,  is  assuredly  the  di- 
vine sense ;  and  this  sense,  which  leads  us  to  distinguish  at 
once  between  good  and  evil,  is  that  practical  dictate  of  con- 
science which  our  author  calls  faith. 


It 

But  we  find  in  the  Scriptures  a  chapter  which  throws  most 
beautiful  and  brilliant  light  on  this  question.  Consider 
these  divine  texts  with  us  for  a  moment :  — • 

"  God  created  man  from  the  earth,  and  made  him  in  his 
own  image."  Here  we  have  the  creation  of  man's  body  and 
of  his  soul,  in  the  image  of  God. 

"  Then  God  turned  man  anew  into  this  image,  and  clothed 
him  with  virtue  like  unto  his  own."  2  It  is  difficult  not  to 
see,  in  this  second  verse,  the  elevation  of  man  to  the  super- 
natural life.  The  sacred  author,  having  spoken  of  the  crea- 
tion, alludes  directly  after  to  this  new  creation,  by  which 

1  Pen-one,  Prelect,  theol.,  vol.  ii.  p.  1330. 

2  Eccli.  xvii. 


396  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

God  resumes  his  creature,  converts  him,  brings  him  back  to 
himself,  clothes  him  with  virtue  like  unto  his  own ;  that  is 
to  say,  endues  him  with  his  proper  quality. 

But  soon  the  sacred  text  speaks  of  the  knowledge  and 
sense  which  God  gives  to  man ;  and  the  distinction  between 
the  two  orders,  natural  and  supernatural,  becomes  fully 
evident. 

"  Counsel,  and  a  tongue,  and  eyes,  ears,  and  a  heart,  gave 
he  them  to  understand.  Withal  he  filled  them  with  the 
knowledge  of  understanding,  and  showed  them  good  and  evil. 
He  set  his  eye  upon  their  hearts,  that  he  might  show  them 
the  greatness  of  his  works.  He  gave  them  to  glory  in  his 
marvellous  acts  for  ever,  that  they  might  declare  his  works 
with  understanding." 

Evidently,  the  allusion  here  is  to  the  natural  light  which 
teaches  us  to  know  God  through  his  works.  The  allusion  is 
to  that  knowledge  which  God  gives  the  mind  in  creating  it, 
which  is  reason,  and  to  that  power  of  distinguishing  between 
good  and  evil,  which  is  conscience.  And,  consequently,  the 
sense  with  which  God  fills  the  heart,  when  he  sets  his  eye  on 
it,  is  that  natural  sense  of  which  we  speak,  which  makes  man 
feel  the  greatness  of  God  in  his  work,  and  teaches  him  to  rise 
from  created  beauties  to  their  Creator. 

But  what  follows  is  manifestly  of  the  supernatural  order : 

"  Besides  this,  he  gave  them  knowledge,  and  the  law  of 
life  for  an  heritage.  He  made  an  everlasting  covenant 
with  them,  and  showed  them  his  justice  and  his  judgments. 
Their  eyes  saw  the  majesty  of  his  glory,  and  their  ears  heard 
his  glorious  voice." 

This  added  gift,  this  heritage  of  the  law  of  life ;  this  ever- 
lasting covenant,  this  justice  of  God ;  this  sight  of  the  maj- 
esty of  God  no  longer  in  his  works,  but  in  his  own  glory 
which  they  see  with  their  eyes ;  the  power  to  hear  his  very 
voice  with  their  own  ears,  —  all  this  is  supernatural. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     397 

Thus,  in  these  complete  and  connected  texts  we  clearly 
perceive  the  strong  distinction  between  that  which  is  natural 
and  that  which  is  supernatural ;  and  it  is  plain  that  the  sense 
with  which  God  fills  our  heart,  when  he  sets  his  eye  on  it, 
at  the  same  time  that  he  gives  us  knowledge,  is  of  the  purely 
natural  order,  and  that  we  must  henceforth  distinguish  be- 
tween a  natural  divine  sense  and  a  supernatural  divine  sense, 
as  we  distinguish  between  a  natural  and  a  supernatural  knowl- 
edge of  God,  a  natural  and  a  supernatural  love  of  God. 
Whence  it  would  follow  that  each  of  the  three  powers  of  the 
soul  may  attain  God  in  two  modes,  naturally  and  supernat- 
urally,  and  that  there  is  a  complete  parallelism  between  the 
two  orders.  Saint  John  says :  "  The  Son  of  God  hath  given  us 
a  sense  to  know  the  true  God."  This  supernatural  divine  sense, 
which  is  faith  or  its  principle,  corresponds  to  an  essential  ele- 
ment of  human  nature,  to  that  natural  divine  sense  to  which 
the  sacred  text  refers,  and  through  which  we  know  God  by 
his  works ;  and  this  natural  divine  sense  is  the  natural  faith 
of  which  Saint  Paul  speaks,  the  faith  in  which  we  must  trust 
our  soul,  say  the  Scriptures,  the  faith  which  theology  calls 
"  the  practical  dictate  of  conscience." 

Thus  the  word  "faith"  has,  in  theology,  two  meanings. 
We  distinguish  between  supernatural  Christian  faith,  whose 
principle  is  the  light  supernaturally  given  of  God,  and  nat- 
ural faith,  whose  principle  is  the  light  which,  in  his  conscience 
and  reason,  enlightens  every  man  coming  into  this  world,  — 
"  natural  human  faith  which  is  in  the  individual  as  it  were 
the  basis  of  human  reason." 1 


III. 

And  now  what  do  philosophers  think  on  this  point  ? 
Philosophers  use  the  word,  in  every  instance,  beginning 

1  On  Grace  and  Nature,  by  the  Abbe  Rohrbacher,  p.  96. 


398  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

with  Aristotle,  to  signify  spontaneous,  immediate  adherence 
to  the  primary,  indemonstrable  principles  of  reason,  whether 
speculative  or  practical. 

The  principle  of  demonstration,  says  Aristotle,  is  not  dem- 
onstration (a-TToSetf ea>5  apx*}  OVK  djroSeij; i?) ,  so  too  the  princi- 
ple of  knowledge  is  not  knowledge  (ovft  eV^rr?}/^?  eTria-Trj/jirj). 
All  knowledge  being  discursive,  there  is  no  knowledge  of 
principles  (TWV  dpx<*>v  eVtcrr 77/477  pev  OVK  av  eirf).1  Assured 
and  primary  principles  are  those  which  create  faith  of  them- 
selves, without  borrowing  their  certainty  elsewhere  (TO,  py  M 
erepcov  d\\a  SI  avrwv  e%ovTa  rrjv  TTLCTTIV).  When  these 
principles  are  referred  to,  we  cannot  ask  the  why  and  where- 
fore (ov  %el  ev  rat?  eTria-TTj/jioviKals  appals  eTrifyrelo-Oai,  TO  &ia 
T/).  Each  principle,  taken  in  itself,  inspires  faith  (aXV  e/cd- 
(TTTIV  TWV  dp%c*)v  avrrjv  /cad'  eavrrjv  elvai  Trio-rrjv).  We  can- 
not demonstrate  them,  we  have  no  knowledge  of  them,  and 
it  is  impossible  to  say  anything  in  regard  to  them  (abvvarov 
€L7T€Lv  TI  7T€pl  avT&v),  for  the  very  reason  that  they  are  ante- 
rior to  everything.2  How  are  these  principles  known  1  By 
experience,  which  arouses  in  the  soul  what  was  latent  there 
(e/c  &  6/i7T€tyHa$  rj  e/c  Trai/ro?  r^fjueprjcravTO^  rov  KaOoKov  ev  rfj 
tyvxf}).  The  mind  attains  these  principles  by  an  inductive 
movement  (ra  TrpwTa  eiraywyf)  ^vwpi^eiv  dvaytcaiov),  by  which 
very  thing  sensation  reveals  the  universal  in  the  soul  (ical  jap 
/cat  alo~6r)o~is  OVTQ)  TO  /ca06\ov  e/iTrotet).3  This  inductive 
movement,  which  awakens  the  universal  in  the  soul,  is,  as 
it  were,  an  act  of  rational  faith,  which  adheres  to  primary 
principles. 

And  indeed  this  necessary  adhesion,4  in  intelligible  light, 
to  primary,  indemonstrable  principles,  of  which  we  have  no 
knowledge,  concerning  which  we  can  say  nothing,  and  which 
sophists  deny  because  they  ask  in  vain  for  their  demonstra- 

1  Post  Analyt,  19.  3  Post  Analyt.,  19. 

2  Topiq.,  i.  1,  2.  4  Ibid. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     399 

tion,  —  this  adhesion  Aristotle  calls  faith  (mams)  wherever 
he  speaks  of  it.  He  uses  the  very  word  which  has  since  been 
elevated  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  to  mean  Christian 
faith.  Not  that  he  understands  by  that  word  a  blind  opinion  ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  regards  it  as  an  adhesion  of  the  mind  to 
evidence,  in  intelligible  light.  But  is  it  not  thus  that  Saint 
Thomas  likewise  understands  it  when  he  says,  "Just  as 
man,  by  the  natural  light  of  intelligence,  adheres  to  princi- 
ples, so  too  by  the  light  of  faith,  divinely  diffused  in  the  soul, 
man  adheres  to  the  things  of  faith  "  ? l  And  Thomassin  un- 
derstands it  as  Saint  Thomas  does  when  he  calls  faith  adhe- 
sion to  the  evidence  of  primary  principles. 

The  Alexandrine  philosophers,  urged  on  by  the  Christians, 
went  farther  on  this  road,  and  developed  the  germs  which 
Aristotle  and  Plato  contained  upon  this  point.  Proclus  says 
many  beautiful  things  of  them,  which  Thomassin  quotes  and 
applauds.  And  Saint  Athanasius,  in  his  life  of  Saint  An- 
tony, aptly  sets  forth  this  doctrine.  He  relates  that  Saint 
Antony,  in  a  journey  to  Alexandria,  desiring  to  convert  cer- 
tain philosophers  to  the  Christian  faith,  began  by  talking  to 
them  of  philosophical  natural  faith,  saying  to  them  "  That 
this  faith  is,  of  all  modes  of  knowledge,  the  most  certain  (17 
Sia  Tr/crrew?  evepyeia  .  .  .  ravrrjv  elvai  rrjv  dfcpiffri  <yvw(riv)." 
Then  he  formally  put  this  question  to  them :  "  What  is,  in 
all  things,  and  especially  if  it  relates  to  God,  the  most  perfect 
mode  of  knowledge  1  Is  it  by  demonstration,  or  by  the  ac- 
tion of  faith  in  the  soul  ?  And  which  is  anterior  to  the 
other,  —  the  action  of  faith,  or  rational  demonstration  ? "  The 
philosophers  at  once  replied .  "  The  action  of  faith."  The 
question  was  well  put  by  Saint  Antony,  and  the  philosophers 
answered  very  aptly  according  to  Aristotle  and  Plato. 

But  on  this  point  a  strange  work  has  been  effected  in 
modern  philosophy. 

1  2a.  2*.  q.  ii.  art.  3. 


400  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

Descartes  said,  "  /  believe  in  the  existence  of  the  world,  be- 
cause God  is  truthful,  and  cannot  deceive  me."  He  went  too 
far,  and  exceeded  sound  theology,  as  well  as  sound  philoso- 
phy. He  employed  a  subterfuge,  an  argument,  in  order  to 
believe  in  the  existence  of  the  world ;  while  that  natural, 
rational  faith  referred  to  by  Aristotle,  and  to  which  Descartes 
meant  to  refer,  is  immediate,  and  clings  to  its  object  itself, 
without  any  outside  mixture  of  argument,  —  its  object  being 
precisely  a  primary,  indemonstrable  fact.  But  Descartes, 
introducing  argument  between  that  faith  and  its  object,  gives 
idealists  and  sceptics  cause  to  deny  the  existence  of  bodies. 
Kant,  indignant  at  this  exaggeration,  strove  to  re-establish 
the  truth ;  he  undertook  radically  to  ruin  that  scepticism 
and  idealism.  To  this  end,  he  distinguishes  abstract  reason, 
separated  from  that  rational,  natural  faith  which  makes  it 
sound,  solid,  and  straightforward ;  he  distinguishes  it  from 
sound  reason,  from  straightforward  reason,  which  depends 
"  upon  that  rational  faith,"  so  called  by  him  in  exact  terms 
( Vernunftglaube),  "  which  alone,"  he  says,  "  can  give  hu- 
man reason  its  bearings."  1 

But  Kant,  despite  his  mighty  powers,  is  a  clumsy,  awk- 
ward, and  confused  master,  who  becomes  embarrassed  in  the 
first  half  of  his  demonstration,  loses  his  breath  in  the  second, 
and  who,  by  this  distinction  carried  to  excess,  opens  the  way 
for  all  the  series  of  sophists  to  which  Germany  has  given 
birth.  They  take  possession  of  precisely  this  reason,  artifi- 
cially abstracted  fron  rational  faith,  as  being  reason  itself, 
true  reason,  total  reason,  and  they  make  use  of  it  to  destroy 
everything.  And  therein  they  justify  Kant ;  since,  starting 
with  this  reason  out  of  its  latitude,  they  actually  end,  as  we 
now  see,  in  denying  the  first  principles,  certain  and  undemon- 
strable  though  they  be,  whether  of  practical  or  of  theoretical 
reason,  to  the  point  of  expressly  contradicting  the  axiom 
1  Was  heisst  sich  im  Denken  orientiren.  —  Opvas.  vi. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     401 

given  by  Aristotle  as  the  last  degree  of  evidence  possible : 
"  That  there  is  no  medium  between  affirmation  and  negation, 
and  that  it  is  impossible  that  one  and  the  same  thing  should 
at  the  same  time  exist  and  not  exist." 

Meantime,  calmer  minds  try  to  maintain  common-sense. 
The  Scotch  patiently  anlayze  thought,  and  find  indeed  that 
there  is  everywhere,  in  the  beginning,  in  what  relates  to  pri- 
mary facts  and  principles,  an  element  of  immediate,  sponta- 
neous, unreasoned  adhesion,  which  they  call  faith.  This  fact, 
with  its  developments,  is  perhaps  the  only  useful  result  of 
Scotch  philosophy.  But  it  is  important.  It  is  an  effort  to 
return  to  truth. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  by  no  means  a  discovery  ;  and  our 
theology,  as  we  have  seen,  had  long  been  familiar  with  it. 
Even  Aristotle  had  already  comprehended  it. 


IV. 

Here  Thomassin  is  particularly  to  be  admired.  Whether 
considered  as  theologian  or  as  philosopher,  he  has  said  every- 
thing that  there  is  to  be  said  on  this  capital  point ;  and,  to 
my  knowledge,  he  is  the  only  one.  Let  us  recall  his  chapter 
entitled,  "  Deeper  than  intelligence  itself,  there  exists  in  the 
soul  a  secret  sense  which  touches  God,  rather  than  sees  or 
hears  him."  Thomassin  often  reproduces  this  idea,  for  he 
prizes  it,  and  justly.  In  his  Treatise  on  God,  he  again 
expresses  himself  thus  :  — 

"  The  soul,1  by  a  sort  of  innate  presage,  so  soon  as  it  is  freed 
from  the  distractions  and  defilements  of  the  senses,  and,  restored 
to  itself,  has  recovered  its  dignity,  —  the  sonl  naturally  suspects 
and  feels  the  sovereign  principle,  indescribable  and  ineffable.  It 
feels  this  by  an  intimate  and  secret  contact,2  which  touches  God, 
ever  present  in  the  centre  of  the  soul  to  protect  its  life.  But 

1  De  Deo,  lib.  iv.  cap.  v.  7.  2  Ibid.,  8. 

26 


402  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

this  immaterial  and  divine  contact  is  the  most  mysterious  point 
of  the  education  of  minds;  we  know  anything  of  it  rather  by 
experience  than  by  speech.  Our  soul  proceeds,  without  any  inter- 
mediary, from  the  sovereign  principle  ;  and  it  is  the  hand  of  God 
whicli  produces  it,  touches  it,  moulds  it,  and  forms  it ;  and  it,  in 
its  turn,  —  for  all  contact  is  mutual,  —  feels  God  and  touches  him, 
when  it  is  not  wrapped  in  the  rough  bark  of  low  things,  fastened 
to  it  by  the  attraction  of  a  gross  love.77 

But  what  is  the  name  of  this  divine  touch,  this  divine 
sense  ?  It  is  faith,  according  to  Thomassin,  —  natural  faith, 
as  the  Alexandrian  philosophers  understood  it,  to  whom  Saint 
Anthony  addressed  himself;  faith,  as  Plato  understood  it 
in  the  book  of  the  Laws,  according  to  Proclus,  quoted  by 
Thomassin.  And  here  our  author  distinguishes  several 
meanings  of  the  word  faith.  He  says, — 

"  There  is  that  faith  by  which  the  loftiest  souls,  which  have 
attained  the  peace  of  the  highest  beatitude,  possess  God  and  en- 
joy him,  —  a  very  different  faith  from  that  wholly  human  faith 
which  binds  us,  through  opinion,  to  unknown  things ;  different, 
also,  from  that  loftier  faith  through  which  our  soul  clings,  without 
reasoning  or  proof,  to  the  evident  light  and  immediate  certainty 
of  first  principles.  That  of  which  we  speak  here  is  anterior,  supe- 
rior, to  the  other  two.  Deeply  hidden  in  the  soul,  it  teaches 
us  thoroughly  that  which  we  could  not  otherwise  have  known, 
because  we  could  not  have  seen,  and  to  accept  what  we  cannot 
understand." 1 

"  It  is  this  faith  which  feels  ineffable  Being  and  sovereign  Good 
rather  than  understands  them."  2 

Thomassin  quotes  on  this  head  very  beautiful  passages 
from  Proclus,  notably  this  :  "  Faith  is  the  ineffable  bond  be- 
tween all  souls,  all  minds,  and  God.  Faith  is  anterior  to 
knowledge.  Faith  is  that  which  leads  souls  into  the  hidden 
nature  of  God."3 

i  De  Deo.,  book  vi.  chap.  v.  11.  2  ibid.  s  ibid. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     403 

That  is,  there  is  in  the  soul,  in  the  opinion  of  philosophers 
and  theologians,  whose  views  Thoinassin  sums  up,  a  natural 
sense  which  feels  God,  a  sense  which  some  theologians  and 
philosophers  call  faith.  And  this  faith,  this  divine  sense, 
is  nothing  hut  the  sovereign  use  of  one  of  the  three  functions 
of  the  soul,  —  to  feel,  to  know,  to  will.  The  soul  feels  every- 
thing, —  God,  itself,  and  the  world. 

From  all  which  precedes,  we  see  that  in  philosophy  as 
well  as  in  theology  we  find  allusions  to  a  certain  faith 
which  is  not  supernatural  Christian  faith,  which  is  therefore 
natural,  whose  principle  is  the  voice  of  God  in  the  con- 
science and  reason,  —  a  faith  through  which  we  must  needs 
cling  to  the  theoretical  and  practical  first  principles  of  rea- 
son ;  a  faith  which,  indeed,  all  minds  do  not  possess,  since 
there  are  actually  those  who  deny  all  logical  and  moral 
laws,  whether  they  deny  them  from  explicit  and  avowed 
doubt,  or  from  some  obscure  but  determinate  system,  as  was 
seen  in  Greece  and  is  seen  in  Germany. 

It  is  not  an  abuse  of  words  to  call  faith,  with  Aristotle 
and  the  Scotch  philosophers,  the  adhesion  of  the  mind  to 
the  evidence  of  first  principles,  or  to  the  evidence  of  primary 
facts.  To  see  and  to  believe  are  not  opposite  things.  To 
believe  is  not  the  opposite  of  to  see,  but  to  demonstrate  and 
understand  thoroughly.  For  instance,  man  sees  the  world 
without  understanding  it.  Saint  Augustine  expresses  him- 
self very  happily  when  he  says,  "  He  who  has  intelligence 
has  also  faith  ;  but  he  who  has  faith  has  not  always  intelli- 
gence." 1  Saint  Augustine  here  points  out  this  fundamental 
fact,  —  namely,  that  there  is  in  all  human  light  a  root  of 
faith ;  that  for  man,  faith  exists  with  intelligence,  with 
perception.  Why  ?  Because  man  never  possesses  the  prius 
absolu  of  anything,  being  only  secondary  and  not  primary 
intelligence.  But  when  he  sees  and  is  bathed  in  light,  he 
i  De  Utilit.  cred.,  cap.  xi. 


404  GUIDE  TO   TEE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

does  not  see  everything,  and  his  gaze  does  not  pierce  any 
being,  any  truth,  through  and  through.  Even  when  he 
shall  see  God  face  to  face,  says  theology,  he  will  not  under- 
stand him.  Faith,  in  one  sense,  says  Saint  Thomas,  will  en- 
dure in  that  light ;  it  will  disappear  as  an  enigma,  but 
it  will  endure  as  knowledge.1  Its  substance  will  remain. 
There  will  therefore  still  be  faith  in  vision,  as  in  the  vision 
of  this  world  by  our  eyes  there  is  faith,  as  in  the  evidence 
of  first  principles  there  is  faith,  —  and  this  because  we  do 
not  see  the  whole  of  anything ;  because  we  cannot  see 
God,  or  the  world,  or  the  principles  of  reason,  to  as  great  a 
degree  as  God  sees  them.  In  all  things  we  start  from  a 
light  greater  than  ourselves,  and  from  data  which  transcend 
us,  and  which  always  leave  us  with  questions  unsolved. 
Faith  is  essential  to  the  being  who  receives  light ;  faith  is 
the  first  acceptance  of  light,  it  is  adherence  to  him  who 
gives  it.  Faith  is  that  region  of  reason  of  which  Bossuet 
speaks,  —  "  that  region  unknown  to  man  in  his  own  actions 
and  in  his  own  conduct,  which  is  the  secret  region  wherein 
God  acts,  and  the  spring  which  he  sets  in  motion." 2 

In  this  sense,  therefore,  we  may,  with  Aristotle,  call  faith 
the  adhesion  of  the  mind  to  evidence  and  to  indemonstrable 
first  principles. 

V. 

Having  fully  established  these  two  meanings  of  the  word 
faith,  natural  faith  and  supernatural  Christian  faith,  let  us 
return  to  the  question  with  which  we  started:  What  is 
sound  reason  ? 

Sound  reason  is  that  which  is  not  severed  from  rational 
faith,  its  basis  and  its  compass,  without  which,  as  some  one 
has  aptly  expressed  it,  it  loses  its  bearings.  "  Faith,"  says 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  "  is,  in  the  supernatural  order,  what 

1  la,  2tte,  q.  67,  5,  c.  2  Vol.  xxv.  p.  394. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     405 

the  evidence  of  principles  is  in  the  natural  order." l  This  is 
admirable  in  its  depth. 

Thus  sound  reason  is  that  which  is  not  set  apart  from  its 
source  in  the  root  of  the  soul,  which  is  not  set  apart  from 
that  point  of  which  Plato  speaks,  whence  God  suspends  the 
soul  to  himself,  which  he  calls  the  root  of  the  soul.2  Sound 
reason  is  that  which  clings  to  the  charm  of  desirability  and 
intelligibility,  so  called  by  Aristotle ;  to  those  simple  oper,a- 
tions  of  the  soul  into  which  error  does  not  enter,  says  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas ; 3  to  that  supreme,  infallible  reason  which 
supports  and  corrects,  of  which  Fe*nelon  speaks ;  to  that  inner 
sanctuary,  that  inmost  core,  that  centre  of  which  Bossuet 
and  all  the  mystics  speak,  where  the  truth  makes  itself  heard, 
where  pure  and  simple  ideas  are  collected  and  contemplated ; 
to  that  hidden  spring  of  which  Bossuet  also  speaks,  "  Which 
has  not  now  all  its  pristine  power,  but  clearly  shows  us,  by 
a  certain  vigor,  that  it  is  rooted  in  some  higher  principle." 

Sound  reason  is  that  which  does  not  break  with  the  divine 
sense,  that  divine  touch,  that  secret  sense,  deeper  than  intel- 
ligence, and  by  which  God  is  touched  rather  than  under- 
stood or  seen. 

Sound  reason,  in  fine,  is  that  which,  in  every  man,  con- 
joined at  some  point  to  that  of  God  and  to  the  common  reason 
of  the  human  race,  fulfils  the  law  which  consists  in  loving, 
even  in  the  intellectual  order,  God  and  man. 

And  perverse  reason  is  that  which  breaks  with  that  neces- 
sary root  of  all  its  legitimate  development,  with  that  rational, 
natural  faith  whose  existence  we  have  just  established. 
Corrupt  reason  is  that  which  by  some  secret  egoism  confines 
itself  to  the  unduly  narrow  limits  of  individual  thought, 
makes  of  itself  a  cistern,  instead  of  a  channel  of  living  water, 

1  3  d.  26,  q.  2,  2">,  and  2a,  2ae.  q.  ii.  art.  3. 

2  In  Joann.  Tract,  xxvi.  2. 

3  Et  in  hue  operatione  animi  non  est  error. 


406  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

and  cuts  itself  off  from  its  source  in  God  and  from  its 
human  affluents. 

Now,  thanks  to  God,  sound  reason  is  that  with  which  we 
are  born,  the  Word,  on  the  one  hand,  enlightening  all  men 
in  this  world ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  mankind  imposing 
upon  us,  by  articulate  speech,  the  outward  forms  of  reason, 
and  giving  us,  in  general,  a  practical  example  of  its  use ;  and 
hence  theologians  and  philosophers  agree  in  recognizing  that 
reason  naturally  leads  us  to  what  is  true. 

"Human  reason,"  says  Perron e,1  "although  limited,  not 
only  by  its  nature  tends  to  truth,  but  may  also  attain  to  it 
with  certainty.  This  common-sense  recognizes,  and  this,  in 
all  ages,  has  been  professed  by  those  who  have  philosophized 
soundly.  Christian  and  catholic  religion  admits  and  teaches 
this,  concerning  the  value  of  human  reason."  "When," 
adds  Per  rone,  "  Luther  denied  free-will,  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  he  at  the  same  time  maintained  that  the  intelligence, 
wholly  obscured,  was  incapable  of  knowing  any  truth  without 
the  light  of  revealed  faith  ;  mocking  at  the  Scholastic  doctors 
(notably  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas),  insulting  all  philosophy  as 
hostile  to  Christianity,  asserting  that  all  the  virtues  of  phi- 
losophers are  vices,  and  all  their  discoveries  errors.  Luther 
was  condemned  by  the  Church  on  this  point,  as  on  all  others. 
The  Jansenists,  taking  up  this  doctrine  in  part,  were  con- 
demned in  their  turn,  and  Lamennais,  although  he  mitigated 
it  somewhat,  was  also  condemned."  2 

Whence  it  follows  that,  according  to  Catholic  teaching,  as 
in  the  eyes  of  good  sense,  we  are  born  gifted  with  more  or 
less  sound  reason,  feeble  though  it  be,  yet  capable  of  develop- 
ment and  certainty.  We  are  born  into  the  human  race 
as  into  a  sort  of  natural  church,  where  the  word  of  our 
fathers,  an  authority  worthy  of  respect,  stimulates,  regu- 
lates, and  develops  the  germs  of  reason. 

1  Perrone,  vol.  ii.  p.  1261.  2  Perrone,  loc.  cit. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      407 


VI. 

But  we  have  not  said  everything  on  the  subject  of  sound 
reason.  It  still  remains  for  us  to  consider  the  noble  words 
of  F^nelon  which  have  already  been  quoted :  "  I  count  on 
grace  alone  to  guide  reason,  even  in  the  narrow  limits  of 
reason.  .  .  .  Men  have  not  sufficient  strength  to  follow  their 
reason  to  the  end.  .  .  .  That  natural  philosophy  which  could 
advance  without  prejudice,  without  impatience,  without  pride, 
to  the  end  of  purely  human  reason,  is  a  philosophic  romance." 

We  believe  that  it  is  strictly  true  to  say  that  man  cannot, 
of  himself,  without  grace,  advance  to  the  end  of  purely 
human  reason.  This  we  shall  show  later. 

But  here,  let  us  first  note,  with  Thomassin,  that,  in  natural 
sound  reason,  there  is,  besides  reason  itself,  —  whose  light  is  a 
ray  from  the  face  of  God  shining  into  the  soul,  says  Saint 
Thomas,  — there  is,  moreover,  a  constant  aid  from  God,  which 
incites,  moves,  urges  to  action  and  development  the  germ  of 
reason.1  Not  only  does  this  light  come  from  God  and  belong 
to  God,  but  also  God  actually  continues  to  diffuse  it,  to  in- 
cite and  direct  its  radiance.  As  when  a  star  shines  in 
heaven,  and  besides  its  ordinary  lustre  and  its  peaceful  light 
it  sends  out  flashes  and  scintillations  to  provoke  attention, 
and  to  show  that  what  the  spectator  sees  is  not  a  dead  lu- 
minary, but  a  luminary  which  lives  and  acts :  so,  too,  in  the 
light  of  the  human  soul,  besides  the  gift  itself  of  reason 
which  man  possesses  once  for  all,  there  are  flashes,  movements, 
and  renewals  which  come  from  God,  and  which  are  aids, 
benefits,  and  stimulants  from  God  in  the  natural  order. 

There  is  more  yet.  As  an  actual  fact,  historically,  no  man 
is  given  over  to  natural  reason  alone,  and  to  the  natural  aids 
alone  of  God.  When  we  are  told  that  the  Word  is  the  light 

1  De  Gratia,  tract,  iii.  cap.  iii. 


408  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

that  enlightens  every  man  coming  into  this  world,  this  refers 
to  both  supernatural  and  natural  light.  God,  desiring  to 
raise  all  men  to  the  supernatural  order,  calls  them  all  thither 
by  his  grace,  by  his  supernatural  stimulations.  "  God,"  says 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  "  as  incessantly  effects  the  justifica- 
tion of  man  (the  appeal  to  supernatural  justice)  as  the  sun 
incessantly  effects  the  illumination  of  the  air."1  Again, 
elsewhere,  Saint  Thomas  utters  these  important  words  :  "  God 
desires  to  raise  man  to  the  supernatural  state ;  and  the  effect 
of  that  desire  is  the  order  itself  of  nature,  so  disposed  as  to 
lead  to  eternal  life  ;  it  is  the  supernatural  and  natural  stim- 
ulations, ever  offered  to  all,  which  lead  to  that  end."  2  The 
reason,  like  the  will,  is  therefore  perpetually,  and  in  all 
ways,  assisted  by  God,  who  unceasingly  urges  every  soul  to 
its  double  natural  and  supernatural  perfection. 

When  Fenelon  says,  "  I  count  on  grace  alone  to  guide 
reason,"  he  at  once  adds,  — 

"  But  I  believe,  with  Saint  Augustine,  that  God  gives  to  every 
man  a  first  germ  of  intimate  and  secret  grace,  which  is  impercep- 
tibly blended  with  reason,  and  which  prepares  man  to  pass  gradu- 
ally from  reason  to  faith.  This  is  what  Saint  Augustine  calls  the 
germ  of  faith,  like  a  germ  conceived  in  the  breast  of  a  mother 
(inchoationes  fidei^  conceptionibus  similes).  It  is  a  very  remote  be- 
ginning of  a  nearer  and  nearer  approach  to  faith,  as  a  very  form- 
less germ  is  the  beginning  of  the  child  to  be  born  long  after. 
God  blends  the  beginning  of  the  supernatural  gift  with  the  rem- 
nants of  our  depraved  nature  so  that  the  man  who  possesses  them 
united  together  in  his  own  heart  cannot  part  them,  and  bears 
within  him  a  mystery  of  grace  of  which  he  is  profoundly  ignorant. 
This  is  what  Saint  Augustine  means  by  these  kindly  words  : 
'  Little  by  little,  Lord,  with  thy  gentle  and  merciful  hand,  thou 
dost  caress  and  reform  my  heart.7  Man  already  possesses  the 
sublimest  wisdom,  but  it  is  still  milk  to  feed  babes  (ut  infantice 
nostrce  lactesceret  sapientia  tua).  The  germ  of  faith  must  begin  to 
bloom  before  it  can  be  distinguished  from  reason. 

1  Contra  Gentes,  book  iii.  cap.  clix.       2  Sent.,  book  i.  dist.  46,  q.  i.  art.  i. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     409 

"  This  secret  and  shapeless  germ  is  the  beginning  of  the  new 
man  (conceplionibus  similes)  •  it  is  not  reason  alone,  or  nature  left 
to  herself,  it  is  nascent  grace  hiding  beneath  nature  to  correct  it 
gradually." 

Admirable  words !  Yet  we  must  beware  of  these  com- 
parisons. Yes,  God  mingles  a  secret  germ  of  grace  with  the 
natural  sound  reason,  but  it  is  a  germ  not  yet  fertilized, 
not  permanent  in  the  soul;  these  are  impulses  of  actual 
grace,  but  not  of  habitual  grace,  for  that  would  be  faith 
itself,  —  it  would  be  intelligence  raised  above  itself  into  a 
supernatural  state. 

But,  in  this  sense,  all  theologians  agree  that,  historically, 
sound  reason  is  always  sustained  by  generous  aid  from  God, 
natural  and  supernatural. 

What  sound  reason  is,  and  what  it  can  do  unaided,  is 
therefore,  in  theology,  a  purely  theoretical  question.  All 
theologians,  even  those  who  grant  the  most  to  the  natural 
powers  of  reason,  —  such,  for  instance,  as  Perrone,  —  admit 
that  in  fact  and  in  history,  reason,  of  itself  alone,  has  not  only 
never  discovered  the  sum  total  of  truths  of  the  natural  order, 
but  it  has  not  even  found  that  portion  of  natural  truth  which, 
logically,  it  was  possible  for  it  to  discover;  that,  for  instance, 
philosophers  such  as  Plato  and  Aristotle  received  supernat- 
ural aid  from  God  for  the  discovery  of  various  great  natural 
truths ;  moreover,  that  they  evidently  made  use  of  the  data 
of  tradition,  deposited  in  language,  where  many  traces  of 
primitive  lights  may  be  found,  given  by  God  to  the  first 
man. 

Thus,  in  short,  sound  natural  reason  is  always  sustained 
by  God,  who  desires  to  elevate  it  (ipse  ordo  naturce  infinem 
salutis).  God  sustains  it,  stimulates  and  guides  it  by  his 
supernatural  and  natural  aid ;  that  is  to  say,  God  not 
only  co-operates  in  every  movement  of  thought,  as  in  every 
other  movement  of  his  creatures,  but  he  also  co-operates  in 


410  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

those  movements  by  upholding  and  directing  them,  as  Fe'nelon 
so  admirably  explains  when  he  speaks  of  the  two  reasons 
within  us,  —  one  which  is  prone  to  err,  and  the  other  which 
corrects  the  first.  Moreover,  God,  desiring  to  raise  all  men 
to  the  supernatural  order,  unites  the  germ  of  grace  with 
the  natural  germ  of  reason,  and  strives  to  fertilize  that  germ 
by  his  incitements ;  and  we  may  say  of  natural  reason  what 
Saint  Thomas  says  of  the  whole  order  of  nature,  —  that  that 
order,  by  God's  desire  to  save  all  men,  moves  towards  the 
supernatural  goal,  and  that  every  intelligence  unceasingly 
receives  both  natural  and  supernatural  impulses  which  urge 
it  towards  this  end.1 

1  We  find,  in  a  lecture  by  Lacordaire,  thoughts  exactly  agreeing  with  our 
own  in  regard  to  natural  faith  and  the  relation  of  the  two  orders  of  the  divine 
intelligible.  "  Even  in  axioms,"  says  the  eloquent  and  learned  Dominican, 
"  I  have  made  clear  to  you  an  obscure  element,  and  consequently  an  element 
of  faith  ;  not  that  axioms  are  not  final  evidence,  but  that  evidence  does  not 
prevent  us  from  seeking  something  beyond  them,  —  the  substantial  axiom 
instead  of  the  logical  axiom,  eternal  light  instead  of  communicated  light, 
intrinsic  truth  instead  of  truth  descended  on  a  mind  which  may  lose  it.  ... 
Which  leads  y6u  to  see  that  the  natural  world  is  joined  to  a  higher  world, 
to  the  divine  world  ;  natural  knowledge  to  divine  knowledge,  natural  faith  to 
divine  faith."  —  1836,  Lecture  xii. 


CHAPTEE   IV. 

THE   RELATIONS    BETWEEN   REASON   AND   FAITH   (Continued). 

FEQM  what  precedes,  we  have  learned  what  sound  reason 
is.  It  is  reason  such  as  it  is  when  it  is  maintained  in 
its  natural  relations ;  it  is  reason  not  artificially  mutilated, 
not  sophistically  separated  from  the  will  first,  and  then  from, 
its  true  root  in  the  centre  of  the  soul,  which  is  the  divine 
sense,  natural  faith  in  God ;  it  is  reason  not  in  revolt  against 
the  common  reason  of  mankind,  not  insensible  of  the  gen- 
erous aids  which  God  gives  to  every  soul.  "We  must," 
says  a  refined  thinker,  "  avoid,  in  our  intellectual  operations, 
all  that  parts  the  mind  from  the  soul."  Nothing  could  be 
better  expressed.  We  must  not  set  the  mind  apart.  We 
must  leave  to  thought  its  life  in  the  entire  soul  and  in  the 
nourishment  which  the  soul  receives  from  God  and  from 
humanity.  Whoever  proceeds  otherwise,  maims  and  muti- 
lates himself,  forces  his  mind  to  retreat,  loses  his  reason,  and 
descends  to  sophistry,  —  even  to  the  formal  negation  of  the 
essential  principles  of  reason,  even  to  the  negation  of  evi- 
dence and  axioms.  In  short,  sound  reason,  as  an  actual  fact, 
is  always  sustained  by  the  grace  of  God,  which  mingles  with 
it  to  lead  man  to  the  supernatural  order. 

This  established,  we  shall  necessarily  agree  when  we  come 
to  investigate  what  reason  may  and  may  not  do ;  and  noth- 
ing, I  believe,  should  any  longer  prevent  our  recognition  of 
what  must  be  called  the  highest  power  and  the  highest 
achievement  of  reason. 


412  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

This  final  achievement  of  reason  is  expressed  by  Perrone 
in  the  proposition :  "  Individual  reason  may  by  itself  with 
certainty  recognize  and  demonstrate  the  possibility,  utility, 
and  necessity  of  divine  revelation."  l 

This  theological  theorem  seems  to  us  to  be  of  prime  im- 
portance and  beauty.  If  we  succeed  in  fully  establishing  its 
truth,  it  will  be  of  immense  consequence;  the  bond  be- 
tween Eeligion  and  Philosophy  will  then  be  found. 

The  question,  it  seems  to  us,  may  be  reduced  to  knowing 
whether  Descartes  and  Saint  Augustine  were  right  in  utter- 
ing these  great  and  fundamental  words :  "  I  am,  and  I  feel 
that  I  am,  an  imperfect  thing,  incomplete,  dependent  on  an- 
other, unceasingly  tending  and  aspiring  towards  something 
better  and  greater  than  myself." 

It  is  enough,  I  say,  to  prove  this  theological  theorem,  if  we 
know  whether  human  reason  is  or  is  not  an  imperfect  thing, 
incomplete  and  dependent,  incessantly  tending  and  aspiring 
towards  something  better  and  greater  than  itself. 

If  it  be  true,  as  Scripture  tells  us,  that  the  light  which  is  in 
us  is  only  darkness,  that  is,  that  our  reason,  compared  to  the 
supernatural  light,  is  but  the  shadow  of  the  light  of  God ;  if 
we  may  say  of  reason  what  the  poet  says  of  the  sun,  — 

"  Sun,  shadow  of  his  light ! " 

if  this  be  that  which  Plato  perceived  when,  in  the  lower  de- 
gree of  the  intelligible,  he  saw  nought  but  "  divine  phantasms 
and  shadows  of  that  which  is ; "  if  Aristotle  understood  the 
same  thing  when  he  distinguished  between  knowledge  coming 
from  above,  and  that  which  comes  from  below,  between  that 
which  is  borrowed  from  visible  things,  and  that  which  is  pure 
intellect,  and  when  he  showed  us  above  our  reason  another 
light  which  is,  which  lives,  which  is  self-thinking,  which  is 
eternal,  immutable,  which  is  not  ours,  which  is  not  essential 

1  Perrone,  ii.  1638. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      413 

to  the  soul,  from  which  the  soul  may  be  separated  without 
impairing  the  reason;  if  the  certain  and  actual  objects  per- 
ceived by  reason,  according  to  Saint  Augustine,  are  clearly 
not  God,  but  demonstrate  him ;  if,  as  Saint  Bernard  says  (in 
which  he  is  followed  by  Saint  Thomas  and  Thomassin),  natu- 
ral light  be  a  reflection  of  God  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul,  so 
that  the  soul  sees  merely  the  reflection  of  God,  not  God  him- 
self, and  only  sees  that  reflection  in  that  it  sees  itself,  which 
Descartes  also  says ;  if  it  be  true  that  hence  this  knowledge 
of  God,  such  as  it  is,  as  Saint  Thomas  everywhere  declares, 
in  which  he  is  confirmed  by  the  Koman  Catechism  and  all 
theology,  is  always  a  thing  apart  from  the  creature,  never 
direct  and  immediate,  for  that  would  be  to  see  God,  a  thing 
impossible  naturally,  —  if  all  this  be  true,  if  such  be  the  na- 
ture of  reason,  do  you  believe  that  reason  knows  nought 
of  it? 

How  did  Aristotle  and  Plato  and  so  many  others  know  it, 
if  reason  is  incapable  of  knowing  it  ?  Are  Descartes'  lucid 
words  false  ?  Is  not  the  reason  of  every  man,  as  well  as  his 
will,  conscious  of  its  own  imperfection  and  incompleteness  ? 
Is  it  not  conscious  of  its  dependence  on  a  higher  being  ?  Does 
it  not  incessantly  tend  and  aspire  to  something  better  and 
greater  than  itself? 

Yes,  reason,  every  one  may  recognize  for  himself,  as  we 
see  in  history,  seeks  a  light,  not  only  brighter  than  its  pres- 
ent light,  but  also  a  very  different  light,  both  of  a  different 
nature  and  better  and  greater  than  itself. 

Men  far  advanced  in  the  works  of  the  mind  know  this : 
we  need  a  better  light ;  that  which  we  have  neither  nourishes 
nor  gives  life.  Shadows,  phantasms,  axioms,  reflections,  and 
abstractions  do  not  satisfy  our  desire  for  knowledge,  admira- 
tion, and  love. 

What  soul  is  there,  still  living  beneath  the  weight  of  years 
and  of  the  most  vast  and  dearly  bought  human  knowledge, 


414  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

which  does  not  sometimes  compare  these  views  of  abstract 
thought  with  the  living  reality,  with  the  vision  of  the 
earth,  fertile,  blooming,  radiant  in  sunshine,  with  the  pene- 
trating and  mysterious  odors  of  nature,  the  savor  of  plants 
and  their  generous  products,  with  the  vigor  of  the  vital  air 
and  the  stimulating  fluids  which  penetrate,  revive,  and  elec- 
trify us,  with  the  sight  of  men  who  seek  and  hope,  with  the 
spectacle  of  whatever  remains  to  us  of  nobility  and  human 
beauty,  with  the  commerce  of  souls,  with  love !  What  soul 
is  there,  I  say,  yet  living,  who,  when  this  contrast  is  made 
clear,  does  not  feel  it  and  say :  "  My  head  is  filled  with  shad- 
ows, genuine  shadows,  undoubted  shadows,  but  still  shadows ! 
I  have  spent  my  life  in  discovering  the  world,  in  studying  its 
motive  springs ;  I  have  not  solved  the  enigma ;  I  have  suc- 
ceeded in  grasping  only  certain  portions,  and  the  little  that  I 
retain  is  but  a  dead  copy  of  life." 

Eead  again  Goethe's  inexhaustible  sarcasms  in  regard  to 
what  he  calls  "  a  foolish  fellow  who  speculates  ! " l  Above 
all,  re-read  the  grander  and  more  sublime  cry  which  disgust 
for  worldly  wisdom  wrings  from  Solomon :  — 

"  Vanity  of  vanities !  all  is  vanity  !  I  gave  my  heart  to  seek 
and  search  out  by  wisdom  all  things  that  are  done  under  the  sun ; 
and  behold,  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  I  said  in  mine 
heart,  Go  to,  now,  I  will  prove  thee  with  mirth.  There  is  nothing 
better  for  a  man  than  that  he  should  eat  and  drink,  and  that  he 
should  make  his  soul  enjoy  good  in  his  labor.  There  is  no  good, 
but  for  a  man  to  rejoice  in  his  life." 

What  does  this  prove  ?  That  our  senses  show  us  realities, 
and  our  reason,  in  so  far  as  it  dwells  in  the  natural  light 
alone,  phantasms.  Do  not  misunderstand  me ;  I  say  divine, 
certain,  axiomatic,  absolute,  eternal,  evident  phantasms,  but 
still  phantasms. 

Well !  shall  I  therefore  relapse  from  reason  into  the  senses, 

1  Ein  Kerl  der  speculiert.  —  Faust. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     415 

like  Goethe's  hero,  like  Solomon  himself  ?  Or  rather,  quite 
the  contrary,  shall  I  not  do  better  to  say :  "  Let  us  rise  higher. 
Let  us  see  if  that  reflection  does  not  proclaim  a  Sun,  and  if 
there  be  not  a  Being,  a  life  corresponding  to  those  ideas  of 
eternity,  immensity,  perfection,  and  infinity,  which  are  per- 
haps in  my  mind  the  cold,  dry  copy  of  eternal  life  ?  May 
we,  by  some  wondrous  revelation,  behold  the  Being  to  whom 
these  traits  answer?  May  we  touch,  feel  and  love  him? 
May  we,  by  some  great  and  holy  initiation,  hold  commerce 
with  him  and  live  his  life,  as  we  live  in  nature  and  humanity  ? " 

That  such  a  Being  exists,  says  reason,  I  know.  It  is  God. 
Everything  proves  it.  Now,  what  motive  have  I  to  deny 
that  I  can  see  him,  and  that  this  great  revelation  is  possible  ? 
I  indeed  see  material  bodies  and  the  earth,  which  are  unlike 
myself ;  I  see  myself  and  am  conscious  of  myself ;  I  see  the 
mind  and  soul  of  other  men  in  their  words  and  looks;  I  see 
immutable  truths,  as  empty  as  they  are  assured,  which  only 
stimulate  my  glance  to  seek  fuller  light:  then  why  should 
I  not  see  God  ?  Cannot  God,  in  whose  light  I  see  and  know 
everything,  make  himself  known  and  seen,  as  a  rnind  makes 
itself  known  to  my  mind,  as  my  soul  is  revealed  to  itself  ? 

I  defy  all  the  knowledge  in  the  world  to  find  any  trace 
whatsoever  of  impossibility  here ;  or  rather,  I  affirm  this  pos- 
sibility simply  because  I  conceive  this  new  relation  of  the 
soul  to  God,  and  seek  for  him. 

I  assert  the  possibility  of  this  revelation,  because  I  see  that 
it  is  useful  and  necessary. 

It  is  necessary : l  for  if  there  be  no  living  intelligible  object 
which  I  can  see  as  I  see  the  outward  world,  if  all  intelligi- 
bility be  abstract,  as  atheists  say,  is  intelligibility  worth  one 
hour's  toil  ?  Intelligibility  then  ceases  to  be  a  future,  a  hope, 

1  Necessary  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Treatises  on  the  True  Religion  have 
proved  the  necessity  of  revelation,  and  not  in  the  sense  that  Baius  maintained, 
that  the  supernatural  light  is  due  to  nature. 


416  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

a  felicity.  The  intelligible  is  no  longer  heaven,  or  rather  it 
is  the  pagan  heaven,  the  kingdom  of  shades,  wherein  the 
loftiest  souls  must  needs  exclaim,  with  Achilles  :  "  Why  am 
I  not  again  upon  the  earth !  Why  am  I  not  the  slave  of  the 
poorest  laborer !  Better  that  than  to  reign  over  all  these 
shadows."  No  one  indeed  cares  to  reign  over  shadows.  Bet- 
ter be  the  living  slave  of  a  real  and  living  being. 

If  there  be  not,  beyond  the  cold  light  of  my  reason,  the 
holy  light,  the  purifying  light,  the  vivifying  light,  the  loving 
light,  —  a  flood  of  ecstatic  delights  as  well  as  a  flood  of 
radiance,  —  then  my  reason  has  deceived  me.  I  should  have 
done  better  to  till  the  ground  and  rest  satisfied  with  its 
gifts.  I  should  do  better  even  now  to  give  up  the  vain  labor 
of  thought,  to  return  to  living  reality,  and  descend  from  that 
chill  height  which  it  was  idle  to  climb. 

And  indeed,  this  temptation  assails,  at  the  pinnacle  of  life, 
most  minds  which  have  sought  light  by  the  labor  of  thought. 
When  man  has  passed  his  highest  point,  and  begins  to  go 
down  into  the  valley  of  old  age,  he  hesitates.  Then  comes 
a  critical  period,  when  the  soul  returns  to  earth,  when  the 
senses  revive  and  put  forth  all  their  most  dangerous  refine- 
ments. Medical  science  recognizes  and  teaches  this.1 

This  is  a  lesson  which  nature  gives  us.  When  man  has 
risen  to  his  highest  point,  has  attained  his  natural  eminence, 
and  has  climbed  as  far  as  human  strength  can  go,  he  should 
mount  higher  yet,  —  he  should  rise  to  the  divine  ;  if  not,  he 
will  sink  to  the  animal. 

Yes,  if  the  man  who  has  gained  the  summit  of  life,  after 
spending  so  much  time  in  the  ascent,  does  not  desire  to 
descend  rapidly  into  the  valley  of  his  tomb ;  if,  while  he  is 
yet  full  of  unrealized  hopes,  unemployed  powers,  and  pos- 
sible progress,  both  conceived  and  hoped  for,  if  he  do  not 
desire  to  see  all  his  powers,  all  his  perfections,  his  clear 

1  Burdach,  Physiology,  v.  127. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH,     417 

judgment,  his  penetration,  his  enthusiasm,  his  courage,  his 
nobility,  his  very  heart,  decay  with  inconceivable  rapidity ; 
if  he  do  not  desire  to  return  to  matter,  to  return  to  earth, 
and  to  degenerate  into  all  the  indolence,  the  grossness,  and 
blindness  of  the  flesh ;  if  he  do  not  desire  to  see  that  flesh,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  loses  its  beauty,  resume  its  tyranny 
over  the  soul,  to  restore  it  more  quickly  to  the  dust,  —  if  man 
desire  not  this  sad  end,  he  must  accept  and  traverse  from 
above,  and  by  an  heroic  effort,  the  great  crisis  of  middle  life. 
He  must  repeat  the  prayer  of  the  prophet :  "  Lord,  1  am  thy 
work !  In  the  midst  of  my  days,  give  me  fresh  life  ;  in  the 
midst  of  my  life,  show  me  thy  light!"  He  must  at  last 
decide  to  cease  being  a  son  of  earth,  and  become  a  child  of 
heaven  ;  to  pass,  still  living,  by  the  sacrifice  and  rupture  of 
all  earthly  ties,  into  the  higher  sphere  of  existence;  to 
enter  wholly  into  supernatural  reality.  He  must  pass  from 
nature  to  God,  leave  self  behind,  and  enter  the  infinity  of 
God,  —  ascend  to  heaven,  in  a  word,  like  Elijah  in  the 
chariot  of  fire. 

If  he  dare  not  do  this  ;  if  he  cannot  give  up  earth  and 
all  its  vanities ;  if  his  search  after  wisdom  was  mixed  with 
stratagems  and  sensuality ;  if  he  shrink  from  indispensable 
and  entire  sacrifice,  —  he  relapses  into  animalism ;  and  the 
life  of  insight  will  soon  seem  to  him  moro  empty  and  idle 
than  the  games  of  childhood  and  the  illusions  of  youth. 

Now,  it  is  impossible  that  a  vain  effort,  followed  by  a  fall 
and  a  return  to  the  senses,  should  be  the  whole  destiny  of 
reason ;  it  is  impossible  that  the  effort,  be  it  what  it  may, 
after  wisdom  and  truth,  should  be  mere  vanity,  Therefore 
we  must  believe  in  the  chariot  of  fire  and  in  the  other  light. 

Therefore  there  is,  or  there  may  be,  says  reason,  some 
divine  revelation  which  gives  perfect  wisdom ;  and  that 
revelation  I  must  await  and  seek. 

For  if,  in  this  belief,  a  man  take  up  the  Gospel  and  read 

27 


418  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

these  words  :  "  Whosoever  believeth  in  him  shall  have  eter- 
nal life ; "  and  these :  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they 
shall  see  God ; "  if  he  remember  that  all  Christianity  lies  in 
offering  to  mankind  means  for  attaining  to  the  vision  of  very 
God,  and  his  possession ;  that  the  great  news  which  he  bears 
is  the  existence  of  another  light,  greater,  better,  than  that 
of  reason,  —  a  light  which  vivifies  and  beautifies  ;  if  we  hear 
Saint  Paul  call  faith  the  beginning  of  that  light,  and  define 
it  as  the  substance  of  Good  to  come ;  if  we  understand  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas  when  he  declares  that  this  light  "  is  called 
substantial  because  it  differs  from  ordinary  knowledge,  which 
sees  its  object  from  without  only,  in  that  divine  Faith  im- 
parts to  the  soul  the  very  substance  and  peculiar  beginning  of 
the  good  things  for  which  we  hope,"  —  then  reason  no  longer 
understands  merely  the  possibility  and  utility  of  revelation, 
but.  as  another  theoretical  axiom  expresses  it,  "  Man's  reason 
may  attain  the  certainty  of  the  existence  of  divine  revelation," 
and  reason  may  say,  "  The  revelation  which  I  knew  to  be 
possible,  useful,  and  necessary,  exists ;  I  behold  it,  —  it  is 
the  Gospel." 

II. 

But  this  point  of  the  question  is  one  of  such  radical  im- 
portance that  we  must  needs  dwell  upon  it,  and,  if  possible, 
attain  exact  results  in  regard  to  our  subject.  Now,  it 
seems  to  me  that  there  are,  indeed,  at  the  heart  of  the 
question,  results  so  precise  that  I  may  venture  to  call  them 
geometrical. 

The  point  at  issue  is  the  necessity,  for  every  man,  of  the 
supernatural  gift  in  order  to  attain  his  full  perfection. 

Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  is  here  again  our  point  of  support 
and  our  theological  authority.  Let  us  quote  him  first,  then 
we  shall  see  how  this  point  may  be  like  a  question  in  geom- 
etry. He  says,  — 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     419 

"  Throughout  the  hierarchy  of  subordinate  natures  we  find  that, 
for  the  perfection  of  every  lower  term,  two  things  are  needed,  — 
the  one  depending  on  its  individual  life,  the  other  adding  to  it  the 
life  of  the  higher  term.  Now,  the  created  rational  nature  alone  has 
for  its  higher  and  immediate  term  God  himself;  the  other  creatures 
do  not  touch  the  universal. 

"  The  rational  nature  alone  is  immediately  subordinated  to  the 
First  Principle,  to  the  Universal  Being. 

"Thus  the  perfection  of  rational  nature  consists,  not  only  in  that 
which  constitutes  its  individual  nature,  but  also  in  some  supple- 
ment which  is  added  to  it  by  a  certain  supernatural  participation, 
in  the  goodness  of  God.  And  it  is  for  this  very  reason  that  we 
have  already  said  that  the  final  beatitude  of  man  consists  of  the 
supernatural  vision  of  God."  * 

To  our  thinking,  there  is  a  sort  of  geometrical  preci- 
sion in  the  theological  formulas  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas. 
"  Harmony,"  says  Leibnitz,  "  geometry,  metaphysics,  and 
morals  are  everywhere  existent."  This,  I  say,  seems  to  hold 
good  of  the  theology  and  metaphysics  of  Saint  Thomas, 
which,  moreover,  is  only  Christian  science  in  all  its  sub- 
limity and  precision. 

This,  then,  is  what  strikes  us  as  geometrical  in  the  propo- 
sition that  intelligent  being,  alone  immediately  subordinated 
to  the  universal  and  the  infinite,  attains  final  perfection 
only  by  a  supernatural  participation  in  the  life  of  God 
himself. 

Man  is  not  and  cannot  be,  of  himself,  absolutely  perfect 
in  anything.  Neither  in  his  being,  his  knowledge,  his  will, 
nor  his  love  can  he  be,  by  himself,  complete,  entire,  and 
finished.  God  alone  is  a  unit,  total,  perfect  in  his  nature. 
Man  is  necessarily  partial,  mutable,  finite,  and  incomplete 
in  all,  for  the  very  reason  that  he  is  created,  and  lives  within 
the  limits  of  time. 

This  is  true  of  man,  as  of  every  creature.     But  there  is 

1  2a,  2ae,  q.  ii.  art.  3. 


420  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

this  difference  between  man  and  all  the  other  inhabitants  of 
our  earth,  that  man  alone,  says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  is 
immediately  subordinated  to  the  universal  or  the  infinite. 

This  means,  if  I  do  not  err,  that,  every  created  being  having 
its  number,  its  weight,  and  its  measure,  —  a  fixed  number 
and  determinate  measure,  —  man  alone,  here  below,  has,  for 
his  number  and  measure,  an  indefinite  number,  an  increas- 
ing measure,  with  no  other  higher  limit  but  the  infinite 
itself. 

He  alone,  in  so  far  as  a  rational  and  free  soul,  in  that 
which  constitutes  human  nature,  is  indefinitely  perfectible. 
He  alone  can  develop  more  and  more,  without  fixed  limit, 
the  idea  of  God  to  which  he  corresponds.  He  increases  in 
intelligence,  in  love;  and  there  is  no  finite,  fixed  limit  to 
this  growth.  But  can  he  ever  develop  all  ?  No,  for  then 
he  would  cease  to  be  a  man  or  a  created  being ;  he  would 
be  all  act,  like  God.  God  alone  is  all  actual.  Man  by  his 
very  nature  is  always  partly  potential  and  partly  actual. 
If  there  were  but  one  finite  development  to  be  enacted,  he 
would  enact  it ;  but  he  would  then  be  mere  matter,  he  would 
be  irrational,  and  hence  he  would  not  be  immediately  subor- 
dinated to  the  infinite.  But  as  he  possesses  a  possible  de- 
velopment which  is  endless,  he  cannot  complete  it,  since  he 
cannot  become  God.  God  alone  is  all  actual  at  the  same 
time  that  he  is  infinite. 

Let  us  clearly  understand  how  the  rational,  free,  and  loving 
soul,  having  its  relation  to  the-  universal,  can  never  develop 
everything,  and  always  remains  indefinitely  developable. 

What,  then,  is  the  rational  and  loving  being  ?  How  do 
we  acquire  love  and  reason  ?  By  direct  illumination  from 
him  who  is  the  Light  of  men.  What  is  reason  ?  It  is  a 
light  derived  from  the  Word,  —  that  is,  from  an  infinite 
source.  So,  too,  with  our  love.  Thus  man,  both  in  his  rea- 
son and  in  his  love,  in  that  which  constitutes  his  individual 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     421 

nature,  is  capable  of  indefinite  development  ;  but  he  will 
never  attain  the  limit  of  development. 

It  is  here  that  man  and  his  entire  rational  and  volitional 
life,  both  in  his  growth  and  in  his  effort  to  reach  his  limit  and 
his  perfection,  are  comparable  to  those  marvellous  geometrical 
quantities  known  as  convergent  series  developed  regularly. 

Do  not  be  alarmed  by  this  comparison;  any  one  can 
understand  it. 

Is  it  not  true  that  the  following  series  of  terms,  — 


that  is,  one  half  plus  one  quarter,  plus  one  eighth,  plus  one 
sixteenth,  plus  one  thirty-second,  and  so  on  indefinitely,  —  is 
it  not  true  that  all  these  terms,  each  of  which  is  always  a 
half  of  that  which  precedes  it,  form,  if  added  together,  an 
increasing  quantity  which  tends  to  become  equal  to  one  ? 
This  is  self-evident. 

Is  it  not  true  that  if  you  add  to  the  series  one  term 
more,  still  the  half  of  the  preceding  one,  —  that  is,  the  essen- 
tial law  of  the  series,  —  you  will  approach  nearer  and  nearer 
to  unity?  This  is  clear. 

For  instance,  the  terms  written  above,  taken  together, 
form  a  sum  equal  to  unity  minus  one  thirty-second.  But 
add  the  next  term,  which  would  be  one  sixty-fourth,  the 
sum  total  will  then  equal  unity  minus  one  sixty-fourth. 
Thus  you  see  that  you  steadily  approach  unity  in  propor- 
tion as  you  develop  your  series. 

But  do  you  not  also  see  that,  for  some  reason,  you  will 
never  attain  unity  itself  ?  Is  it  not  possible  to  go  on  for- 
ever, endlessly,  adding  one  term  more  ?  Undoubtedly,  since 
to  add  a  term  we  have  only  to  take  half  of  the  preceding 
term  ;  and  that  preceding  term,  small  as  it  may  be,  being 
something,  the  half  of  something  is  necessarily  something, 
never  zero.  You  can  thus  always  add  one  term  more. 


422  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

However  far  you  may  develop  your  series,  there  will 
always  remain  a  genuinely  infinite  series  of  possible  terms 
to  be  developed,  while  you  will  have  obtained  nothing  but  a 
finite  number  of  terms. 

The  perfect  image  of  free  and  rational  being  which  is  de- 
veloped in  time,  under  an  increasing  number  and  a  growing 
measure,  which  always  remains  actually  finite,  —  that  is  the 
necessary  nature  of  created  things;  but  which  is  always 
capable  of  potential  increase,  —  that  is  the  peculiar  nature 
of  man.  The  perfect  image,  we  say,  of  a  being  which  can 
never  carry  all  its  potentiality  into  act,  since  it  would  then 
be  limited  like  matter,  or  infinite  like  God  ;  which  tends 
and  converges  constantly  towards  that  limit,  towards  that 
universal  and  that  infinite,  to  which  it  is  directly  relative, 
but  yet  which  it  can  never  attain,  whatever  be  the  dura- 
tion and  rapidity  of  its  development. 

But  there  is  another  point  of  view.  How  do  geometricians 
say,  and  how  can  they  say  with  all  truth,  that  the  series  just 
quoted,  taken  with  all  its  possible  terms,  —  is  mathemati- 
cally, precisely,  equal  to  one  ?  How  can  they  posit  as  true, 
with  the  utmost  precision,  this  equation,  — 


that  is  to  say,  one  half  plus  one  quarter,  plus  one  eighth, 
plus  one  sixteenth,  plus  all  the  rest,  equals  ONE  ?. 

It  is  because  they  suppose,  as  we  said,  that  the  series  is 
taken  with  all  its  possible  terms,  —  not  only  with  all  the 
terms  actually  developed,  but  with  all  its  possible  developable 
terms  and  all  its  terms  in  potentiality.  But  there  is  an 
infinite  number  of  these  possible  terms,  as  we  have  seen. 
There  is  an  infinite  number,  in  the  exact  sense  of  the  word, 
since  we  can  never,  absolutely  never,  reach  the  last.  We 
can  never  develop  more  than  a  finite  number  of  them,  and 
there  always  remains  an  infinite  number  of  possible  ones  to 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     423 

be  developed.  The  number  of  possible  terms,  therefore,  is 
really  infinite. 

Here,  then,  the  infinite  intervenes  ;  and  we  must  indeed 
suppose  that  the  infinite  has  actually  entered  into  the  series, 
and  has  completed  the  terms  developed  by  its  developable 
infinity,  in  order  for  it  to  become  a  unit.  The  infinite  must 
intervene  before  this  increasing  quantity  can  have  its  integ- 
rity, attain  its' plenitude,  its  perfection,  its  absolute  totality. 
This  is  plain. 

Well,  what  does  theology  teach  us  ?  It  tells  us  that,  by 
his  own  unaided  nature  alone,  man  cannot  attain  the  perfec- 
tion of  his  life,  of  his  knowledge,  of  his  will,  of  his  wisdom,  of 
his  love,  or  of  his  beatitude.  All  is  always  necessarily  partial 
and  incomplete  in  man ;  nothing  absolutely  one,  perfect,  total, 
integral,  belongs  to  him  by  nature.  But  God,  who  is  the 
Infinite,  may,  by  superadding  to  the  created  being  a  new 
gift,  which  is  himself,  give  that  integrity  and  perfection  to 
the  rational  creature. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  very  precise  comparison,  on  this 
point,  of  geometry  and  theology ,  and  we  see  that  our  reason 
cannot  acquire  its  final  perfection  until  God  himself  shall 
descend  into  it. 

And  all  this  is  further  elucidated  by  theological  formulas, 
and  also  aids  us  to  understand  them. 

For  instance,  nothing  could  seem  stranger,  at  first  sight, 
than  the  condemnation  of  this  proposition  of  Bams :  "  The 
integrity  of  first  creation  is  not  a  gratuitous  final  touch  of 
perfection  superadded  to  human  nature,  it  is  its  natural  con- 
dition." l  The  condemned  proposition,  for  those  who  do  not 
know  the  language  of  theology,  at  first  seems  evident  in  its 
terms.  How  can  the  integrity  of  nature  be  a  gratuitous  gift 
superadded  to  nature  ?  How  can  the  integrity  of  nature  be 
other  than  natural  ?  Could  God  create  a  maimed  and  muti- 
lated being,  a  ruin  like  the  actual  humanity  ? 

1  26  Bail. 


424  GUIDE   TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

From  our  point  of  view,  we  understand  the  condemnation ; 
we  see  the  proposition  of  Baius  to  be  utterly  false.  Man,  by 
his  individual  nature,  no  more  possesses  his  integrity  and 
perfection,  even  natural,  than  the  series  in  process  of  develop- 
ment can  attain  its  unity  and  totality  without  the  hypo- 
thesis of  the  infinite,  —  a  hypothesis  so  perfectly  outside  of 
the  law  of  the  development  of  the  series  that,  by  that  law, 
it  is,  on  the  contrary,  apparent  that  the  limits  and  unity 
cannot  be  attained. 

From  this  point  of  view  also  we  understand  this  other 
theological  theorem  already  quoted:  "The  grace  of  God  is 
requisite  to  fallen  man,  for  a  knowledge  of  all  the  truths  of 
the  natural  order." 

I  am  well  aware  that,  far  from  any  intention  to  allude 
here  to  absolute  necessity,  there  is  no  question,  in  the  sense 
in  which  this  proposition  was  framed,  of  any  but  a  moral 
necessity.  That  is  to  say  that,  strictly  speaking,  man,  even 
fallen,  if  he  made  perfect  use  of  all  the  natural  aids  from 
God,  all  his  time,  all  his  life,  might,  perhaps,  without  special 
grace,  know  the  sum  total  of  those  truths. 

But  what  truths  ?  The  principal  moral  truths,  the  pre- 
ambles of  faith,  the  dogmas  of  natural  religion  essential  to 
man,  and  not  all  the  truths  of  the  natural  order;  and  he 
would  not  know  them  with  that  entire  knowledge,  carried  to 
its  end,  such  as  the  first  man  possessed.  Doubtless  again, 
as  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  says,  in  the  primitive  state,  nature 
attained,  without  supernatural  grace  from  God,  to  all  that 
knowledge;  but  how  did  man  attain  that  state  of  perfect 
nature  ?  In  consequence  of  a  supernatural  gift  from  God. 
Therefore,  strictly  speaking,  and  in  no  case,  have  human  in- 
telligence, human  love,  or  anything  human,  their  full  per- 
fection, even  natural,  as  Saint  Thomas  teaches,  without  a 
supernatural  gift  from  the  goodness  and  infinite  power  of 
God. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     425 

And  our  geometrical  formula  remains  visible  under  the 
transparent  veil  of  these  dogmas. 

We  understand  that  the  integrity  of  human  nature  is  not 
the  natural  condition  of  man,  but  a  perfecting  of  nature  by 
the  infinite  power  of  God.  We  understand  furthermore  that, 
by  this  gift,  man  obtained  the  perfection  of  his  nature  ;  but 
it  did  not  necessarily  follow  from  that  perfection,  given 
within  the  limits  of  nature  by  a  supernatural  principle, 
that  man  was  to  be  raised  to  participation  in  the  divine 
nature. 

And  we  see  that  we  cannot  say,  with  Bai'us,  "  That  the 
elevation  of  human  nature  to  participation  in  the  divine  na- 
ture was  due  to  the  integrity  of  the  first  creation,  and  should 
be  called  natural,  and  not  supernatural."  1 

The  gift  of  God  might  stop  there,  and  give  man  only  com-; 
plete  natural  knowledge,  complete  empire  over  his  passions,^ 
and  immortality  in  his  body.  Only,  as  Saint  Thomas  d 
onstrates,  man  would  not  then  have  been  raised  to  his  fina 
perfection ;  that  is,  to  his  supernatural  end,  which  consists 
in  seeing  the  essence  of  God  and  possessing  it ;  and  integral 
nature,  even  more  than  fallen  nature,  would  have  retained 
the  natural  desire  to  see  the  essence  of  God  and  to  possess  it. 

Man  would  then  have  been  merely  in  that  state  which 
may  be  called  supernatural  as  to  its  origin,  and  not  in  that 
which  must  be  called  supernatural  as  to  its  sanctifying 
effects.2 

The  supernatural  gift  in  its  origin  would  have  as  its  only 
and  complete  end,  natural  perfection,  and  not  that  commu- 
nication from  the  divine  nature  known  as  sanctification. 

But  this  is  only  a  purely  hypothetical  state,  as  is  the  state 

1  21  Baii. 

2  There  is  the  supernatural  as  to  its  origin  (entative,  KO.T    ovalav),  the  su- 
pernatural  as   to   its  sanctifying   effects   (icad'  ayuurfjibv,  or  «a0' 

),  as  Father  Passaglia  so  ably  treats  them  in  his  note-books. 


426  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

of  pure  nature.  These  two  states  never  existed.  The  first 
man  was  created  in  a  state  cf  justice  and  supernatural  sanc- 
tity, at  the  same  time  as  in  that  state  of  complete  natural 
perfection  which  excludes  ignorance,  lust,  sorrow,  and  death, 
and  which  implies  a  supernatural  gift. 

However  this  may  be,  what  we  desire  to  assert  is  that,  in 
any  case,  the  perfection  of  man  is  possible  only  by  a  super- 
natural gift  from  the  bounty  and  infinite  power  of  God. 

It  would  then  remain  for  us  to  understand  how  man  may, 
through  God,  do  what  he  cannot  do  of  himself ;  how,  in  the 
intellectual  order,  man  may  know,  through  God,  every  truth 
,of  the  natural  order,  all  the  first  region  of  the  intelligible, 
and  enter  the  second,  which  is,  in  itself,  supernatural.  This 
is  the  mystery  of  divine  love,  the  mystery  of  union. 

We  see,  indeed,  in  the  material  world,  the  wonders  of 
grafting,  —  that  is,  a  root  which  bears,  by  a  superadded  germ, 
fruits  not  its  own,  and  of  a  nature  superior  to  its  own. 

We  see,  as  Leibnitz  observes,  in  speaking  of  that  which 
revelation  adds  to  knowledge,  we  see  the  human  eye,  the 
instrument  of  vision,  acquire,  by  the  power  which  other  in- 
struments superadd  to  it,  a  vision  many  thousand  times 
stronger  than  its  natural  vision. 

In  geometry  we  see  that  convergent  series  by  which  we 
can  prove  that  it  cannot,  by  development,  attain  its  integ- 
rity ;  and  yet,  if  the  hypothesis  of  the  infinite  be  introduced 
into  it,  that  which  was  impossible  becomes  possible. 

To  attain  to  the  highest  degree  of  the  divine  intelligible, 
let  us  note  in  passing,  to  the  supernatural  degree,  is,  as 
theology  teaches,  to  share  in  the  knowledge  of  God  himself. 
This  knowledge,  by  its  nature,  transcends  all  created  intelli- 
gence, and  belongs  only  to  God.  But  God,  who  possesses  it, 
enables  us  to  attain  it  through  him.  How  ?  By  union 
with  him,  by  love.  We  can  say  no  more.  "What  we  can 
do  through  those  we  love,"  says  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  on 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      427 

this  head,  "  we  can,  in  a  certain  sense,  do  of  ourselves." 
What  I  can  do  through  my  well-beloved,  says  love,  I  can  do 
by  myself.  I  know  because  you  know,  and  I  see  because 
you  see.  These  enthusiasms,  these  ecstasies  of  passion,  are 
realized  and  made  true  by  omnipotent  God,  for  the  souls 
which  are  united  to  him. 

But  this  is  not  properly  the  question  here.  What  we 
wish  to  demonstrate,  is  the  geometrical  precision  of  this  prop- 
osition of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas:  that  the  perfection  of 'a 
rational  creature  depends  not  alone  upon  that  which  his  in- 
dividual nature  implies,  but  also  on  a  certain  supernatural 
participation  in  the  bounty  of  God. 


III. 

We  think  that  we  have  now  proved  this  assertion,  but 
without  as  yet  making  clear  its  whole  range. 

Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  not  only  affirms  that  the  perfection 
of  the  rational  creature  depends  upon  a  supernatural  gift 
(/car  ovo-iav),  which  gives  it  the  perfection  of  its  peculiar 
nature ;  he  also  affirms  and  proves  that  the  rational  creature 
attains  its  final  perfection  only  through  that  other  supernat- 
ural gift  (KO,&  dyiaaiJLov),  which  raises  human  nature  above 
itself  to  participate  in  the  divine  nature,  by  the  vision  of 
God's  essence.  We  quote  his  wonderful  words : :  — 

"  The  final  and  perfect  beatitude  of  man  consists  in  the  vision 
of  the  very  essence  of  God.  This  is  made  clear  by  two  considera- 
tions. In  the  first  place,  man  is  never  perfectly  happy  while 
there  yet  remains  anything  for  him  to  desire  and  to  seek.  In  the 
second  place,  the  perfection  of  each  of  our  powers  depends  upon 
its  relation  to  its  object. 

"  Now,  the  object  of  the  intelligence  is  that  which  is,  it  is  the 
very  essence  of  things,  says  Aristotle.  Whence  it  follows  that  in- 

1  1*  2",  q.  iii.  art.  8. 


428  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

tellectual  progress  consists  in  seeing  the  essence  of  things.  If, 
therefore,  the  mind  know  the  essence  of  any  effect  which  does  not 
reveal  to  it  its  essence,  but  only  the  existence  of  its  cause,  we  can- 
not say  that  that  mind  has  attained  this  cause,  although  it  knows 
that  it  exists ;  therefore,  when  man  is  acquainted  with  an  effect 
and  knows  that  it  has  a  cause,  his  natural  desire  is  to  know  also 
what  this  cause  is  :  and  this  desire,  mixed  with  admiration,  urges 
him  on  in  his  search,  and  this  search  ceases  only  at  the  sight  of 
the  essence.  If,  therefore,  the  human  mind  knows  the  essence  of 
any  created  effect,  and  knows  nothing  of  God,  save  that  he  is,  we 
cannot  say  that  the  mind  has  grasped  the  First  Cause,  but  it 
still  has  the  natural  desire  to  seek  it,  and  it  has  as  yet  neither 
its  perfection  nor  its  beatitude.  Therefore,  for  man's  perfect 
beatitude,  his  intellect  must  attain  the  very  essence  of  the  First 
Cause,  and  that  intellect  can  only  have  its  perfection  in  a  union 
with  God.  its  supreme  object,  and  the  supreme  beatitude  of  man." 

Saint  Thomas  everywhere  insists  upon  this  point ; J  in  the 
Philosophic  Sum  he  devotes  long  chapters  to  establishing2  — 

"  That  the  natural  knowledge  of  God  does  not  satisfy  the 
natural  desire  of  men's  souls,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  this  knowl- 
edge incites  them  to  desire  a  sight  of  God's  substance.  To  know 
thoroughly,  says  Saint  Thomas,  is  to  know  of  a  thing  that  which 
it  is.  Our  natural  desire  to  know  is  therefore  not  satisfied  when 
we  only  know  that  God  is.  In  vain  we  know  that  he  is,  our  de- 
sire does  not  stop  there,  but  we  also  wish  to  know  God  through 
his  essence.  Every  intelligence  naturally  desires  the  vision  of  the 
divine  substance.  Now,  it  is  impossible  that  this  natural  desire 
should  be  an  idle  one.  Therefore  every  created  intelligence  may 
attain  to  the  sight  of  the  essence  itself.  Only  no  created  being 
can,  through  his  natural  powers,  attain  to  this  vision  of  God." 

Which  is  to  say  that  man  sees  with  his  eyes,  directly 
before  him,  the  world,  creation.  He  desires  to  see,  in  the 
same  manner,  God  himself,  God's  being,  God's  essence.  Now 
he  knows  that  God  is ;  he  knows  it  with  certainty  ;  but  he 

1  Notably  1*  q.  xii.  cap.  i.;  3aq.  ix.  cap.  ii.  et  ad  3m. 

2  Title  of  chap.  1.,  chap.  Ivii.     Title  of  chap.  lii. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH       429 

wishes  to  see  him  whose  existence  he  knows.  To  know  that 
God  is  because  the  world  is,  is  the  first  degree  of  intelligible 
light,  it  is  the  sight  of  natural  light  reflected  by  creation. 
When  man  shall  see  the  source  itself  of  that  light,  God  him- 
self, that  will  be  the  second  degree,  that  of  supernatural  vision. 

This  is  what  man  desires  and  seeks.  For  without  this 
he  cannot  be  supremely  happy.  Thus,  according  to  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas,  natural  reason  is  a  power  which,  through 
regret  and  privation,  seeks  the  supernatural  light,  although 
it  cannot  conceive  of  it.  The  first  degree  of  the  divine  intel- 
ligible leads  to  the  other.  Keason,  by  natural  light,  proves 
that  it  requires  another  and  a  different  light :  reason  leads  to 
revelation  ,  intelligence  seeks  faith. 

I  am  well  aware  that  elsewhere  Saint  Thomas  seems  to 
say  quite  the  contrary.  In  his  Treatise  on  Truth  he  ex- 
presses himself  thus :  — 

"  Man's  supreme  good,  that  good  which  moves  his  will  as  the 
final  goal,  is  double.  There  is  the  good  which  is  proportioned  to 
human  nature,  and  which  the  forces  of  nature  suffice  to  obtain. 
This  is  the  felicity,  whether  contemplative  or  active,  which  lies  in 
the  exercise  of  human  wisdom  and  the  practice  of  the  moral  vir- 
tues described  by  the  philosophers.  But  there  is,  for  man,  another 
good  which  transcends  all  the  proportions  of  human  nature,  and 
which  the  natural  powers  do  not  suffice  to  obtain,  or  even  to  con- 
ceive or  desire.  And  this  good  is  eternal  life."  l 

Thus  in  the  Theological  Sum  and  in  the  Philosophical 
Sum,  Saint  Thomas  speaks  of  man's  natural  desire  (naturale 
desiderium)  to  see  the  essence  of  God,  which  is  man's  su- 
preme good ;  and,  in  this  Opuscule,  he  denies  that  the  soul, 
by  its  natural  powers,  can  conceive  and  desire  the  supreme 
good. 

But  the  contradiction  is  only  seeming,  and  these  two  points 
of  view  of  Saint  Thomas  explain  the  theological  discussion 

1  Verit.  xiv.  art.  21. 


430  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

which  has  arisen  upon  this  subject,  and  which  the  Bull 
Auctorem  fidei  decides.  This  double  point  of  view  answers 
to  this  clear  distinction  which  Saint  Thomas  continually 
repeats :  Natural  reason  may  know  of  God  that  he  is,  not 
what  he  is. 

Natural  reason  may  say  :  I  know  that  he  is,  without  know- 
ing what  he  is.  I  do  not  know  his  essence.  I  do  not  see  it. 
I  lack  that  vision.  I  conceive  that  it  may  be  obtained.  I 
would  that  I  might  obtain  it.  Here  we  have  that  natural 
desire  to  which  Saint  Thomas  refers  in  the  Sum,  —  a  desire 
which  is  not  only  inefficacious,  as  Billuard  has  observed,  but 
which  we  also  declare  to  be  indirect,  negative,  and  without 
substantial  relation  to  its  object.  As  for  the  other  kind  of 
desire,  which  conceives  the  object,  which  is  created  in  the 
soul  by  the  real  attraction  of  the  desirable  and  the  super- 
natural intelligible,  this  desire  clearly  transcends  the  powers 
of  nature.  Between  these  two  kinds  of  desire,  of  which  one 
is  desire  through  privation,  and  the  other  desire  through  a 
beginning  of  possession,  there  is  all  the  difference  that  there 
is  between  reality  and  shadow,  between  fulness  and  empti- 
ness, between  positive  and  negative. 

Between  these  two  degrees  of  desire  there  are  the  differ- 
ences expressed  by  the  Psalmist  in  these  words :  "  I  have 
desired  the  true  desire  of  justice  (concupivit  anima  mea 
desiderare  justificationes  tuas) " :  it  is  nature  desiring  with 
natural  desire,  the  supernatural  desire  of  grace,  as  Saint 
Ambrose  says.1 

This  distinction  seems  to  us  clearly  established  by  the 
Bull  Auctorem  fidei.  The  Jansenist  Council  at  Pistoia  had 
established  that  man,  given  over  to  his  own  light  (relic- 
tus  propriis  luminibus),  might  be  capable  of  moving  and 
rising  so  far  as  to  desire  light  (moveret  se  ad  desiderandum 

1  Ps.  cxviii.  v.  20  :  Concnpiscimus  desiderare,  quod  non  sit  potestatis  nostrse 
desiderium,  sed  gratise  Dei. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     431 

auxilium  superioris  luminis).  The  Bull  decides  that  this 
doctrine,  understood  in  the  sense  of  a  desire  which  should 
tend  to  eternal  salvation  (intellecta  de  desiderio  adjutorii 
superioris  luminis  in  ordine  ad  salutem  promissam  per 
Christum),  is  suspicious,  and  favorable  to  semi-Pelagian 
heresy.  Nothing  can  be  plainer.  Desire  tending  to  eternal 
salvation  —  that  is  to  say,  salutary,  efficacious,  supernatural 
desire  for  eternal  life  —  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  all 
natural  lights  and  powers.  It  is  in  this  sense,  which  is 
that  of  the  Council  of  Pistoia,  that  the  Bull  condemns  the 
statement ;  but  it  formally  declares  that  the  doctrine  is  con- 
demned only  in  this  sense  (intellecta  de  .  .  .  ).  It  thus 
reserves  another  sense ;  and  that  sense  can  only  be  that  of 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  in  his  two  Sums,  which  assuredly 
were  not  condemned  on  any  point  by  the  Bull  Auctorem 
fidei. 

Whence  it  results  that  if  it  be  certain,  if  it  be  taught  by 
faith,  that  the  vision  of  God  is  purely  supernatural,  and 
that  we  can  neither  attain  to  it,  nor  desire  it  aright,  effica- 
ciously, save  by  a  supernatural  gift,  we  may  yet  maintain, 
with  the  Angelic  Doctor,  that  the  rational  creature,  created 
for  the  vision  of  God,  has  a  natural  desire  for  it,  such  as  we 
have  defined.  Yes,  the  intelligence  of  man  longs  to  see 
God,  not  only  as  in  a  glass,  but  face  to  face  and  directly ;  our 
nature  desires  the  two  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible,  and 
we  may  say  of  sound  reason  that  it  is  a  power  which  seeks 
faith. 


CHAPTER  V. 

RELATIONS   BETWEEN  EEASON  AND  FAITH   (Continued). 

I. 

WE  have  seen  what  sound  reason  is,  and  what  it 
can  do. 

It  can  find  and  prove  the  existence  of  God.  Then  it  can 
show  the  possibility,  the  necessity,  of  a  revealed  light,  — 
that  is,  the  necessity  for  seeing  God,  God's  essence,  —  in 
order  to  attain  final  perfection,  supreme  beatitude. 

But  how  does  the  soul  pass  from  one  to  the  other  ? 
How.  does  the  intellect,  established  in  sound  reason  and 
in  natural  light,  acquire  faith,  acquire  the  supernatural 
light  ? 

We  explained  this  in  part  when  we  quoted  the  admirable 
passage  in  which  Fe'nelon  speaks  of  the  means  of  passing 
gradually  from  reason  to  faith.  But  we  must  now  develop 
it  still  further. 

When  Fe'nelon  tells  us,  "  God  mingles  the  beginning  of 
the  supernatural  gift  with  the  remains  of  kindly  nature," 
and  this  germ  is  developed  gradually,  if  our  spirit  respond 
faithfully  to  the  help  which  it  receives,  —  in  these  words 
there  is  an  image,  borrowed,  it  is  true,  from  the  Gospel, 
which  compares  the  kingdom  of  God  to  the  leaven  mixed 
with  the  whole  lump ;  but  this  image  requires  to  be  trans- 
lated here  into  philosophical  language. 

Saint  Thomas  and  Saint  Augustine  combined  seem  to  give 
us  this  translation.  Saint  Thomas  calls  the  light  of  reason 
"  a  light  inwardly  given  by  God,  in  which  God  speaks  to 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      433 

us  ;'M1  and  Saint  Augustine  says,  "That  eternal  wisdom,  the 
primary  cause  of  the  rational  creature,  never  ceases  in  any 
sort  to  speak  with  him,  to  the  end  that  it  may  convert  him."  2 
A  comparison  of  these  two  texts?  will  explain  Fe'nelon's  en- 
tire thought. 

The  two  doctors,  taken  together,  affirm  that  God  never 
ceases  to  address  the  rational  creature,  as  well  by  the  nat- 
ural, as  by  the  supernatural  light;  and  they  show  what 
results  from  this  continual  appeal  of  the  Word  to  the 
soul. 

God  never  ceases  to  address  the  rational  creature :  this  is 
the  source  of  reason.  But  why  does  God  speak  ?  To  the 
end  that  the  rational  creature  may  be  converted  to  him  who 
is.  This  intention  to  bring  back  his  creature  to  him  is  grace, 
which  tries  to  incite  the  conversion  of  the  soul,. —  that  is, 
its  passage  from  natural  life  to  eternal,  supernatural  life. 

While  reason  speaks,  and  the  natural  light  properly  so 
called  is  made  manifest,  grace  speaks  at  the  same  time, 
the  supernatural  light  is  already  there,,  like  God.  himself, 
with  God  himself,  who  offers  it.  This  is  the  double  speech, 
natural  and  supernatural,  which  the  Eternal  Wisdom  never 
ceases  to  address  to  the  rational  creature.  The  Word  of 
God  is  always  speaking,  to  give  the  one  and  the  other  light. 
The'  one  is  necessarily  received  so  soon  as  we  are  rational, 
but  the  other  is  freely  received  when  the  soul  ceases  to 
oppose  any  obstacle.  Suarez  says, — 

"  We  have  proved  that  the  stimulating  grace  necessary  to  sal- 
vation is  by  a  general  law  promised  to  all,  offered  to  all,  by  Jesus 
Christ,  not  absolutely,  but  upon  one  condition,  which  depends 
upon  man.  This  condition  is  neither  a  merit  on  our  part,  nor  a 
tendency  in  any  way  proportioned  to  the  gift  of  supernatural 
grace.  It  can  therefore  only  be  the  single  condition  of  offering  no 
obstacle ;  we  cannot  conceive  of  any  other.  For  if,  ordinarily, 

1  Verit.,  q.  ii.  art.  1.  *  Ibid.,  iii.  106,  c. 


434  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

the  moral  act  be  necessary,  that  moral  act,  having  no  proportion 
to  grace,  could  only  be  necessary  to  remove  the  obstacle  of  sin ; 
it  is  useful  to  destroy  the  vicious  tastes  which  make  man  more 
incapable  of  receiving  grace.  We  readily  understand  this  doc- 
trine. Imagine  .an  adult  man  absolutely  lacking  in  this  inward 
stimulating  grace ;  this  lack  cannot  come  originally  from  God, 
who  desires  supremely  to  give  grace  to  all.  The  cause,  therefore, 
is  in  the  man.  But  what  is  it  ?  Is  it  that  the  man  does  not 
merit  grace,  or  has  not  prepared  the  way  for  it  by  works?  No, 
since  there  are  no  preparatory  merits  or  acts  proportionate  to 
grace,  save  after  a  first  grace.  There  is  thus  but  one  possible 
cause  for  the  lack  of  all  grace,  and  that  is,  that  man  opposes  some 
obstacle  to  the  grace  which  is  given.  The  condition  of  God's 
grace,  therefore,  is  this,  —  not  to  oppose  any  obstacle  to  it."  2 

Thus  grace  is  present  like  God,  who  is  present  to  all,  and 
who  desires  supremely  to  give  his  grace  to  all.  God  never 
ceases  to  address  the  rational  creature:  this  is  the  natural 
gift  always  received.  He  addresses  him,  to  the  end  that  he 
may  ~be  converted ;  this  is  the  supernatural  divine  intention, 
—  it  is  the  grace  which  is  offered.  Is  it  received  ?  Is  it  in 
us  ?  Is  it  not  ?  It  is  received,  it  is  in  us  so  soon  as  we  re- 
move the  obstacle.  What  is  the  obstacle,  ?  It  is  vice  ;  it  is 
that  depravity  which,  understanding  the  natural  speech  of 
the  Word  in  conscience  and  reason,  does  not  obey  it  in  prac- 
tice and  life.  God  would  pour  into  the  soul  the  supernat- 
ural gift  which  is  always  offered,  if  the  soul  would  obey  him 
and  heed  it  in  the  natural  order. 

The  single  and  perfect  God,  the  absolute,  supreme  Good, 
is  present.  He  speaks  continually  to  the  soul,  which  gives 
it  life  in  the  natural  order,  and  would  give  it  life  in  the 
supernatural  order,  if  the  soul  would  become  converted.  This 
conversion  is  continually  suggested  by  God,  who  never  ceases 
to  speak  through  nature  and  grace.  The  same  perfect  God, 
who  is  the  life  of  the  soul  in  the  natural  order,  becomes  its 

1  Tract,  de  divin.  Grat.,  pars  ii.  lib.  iv.  cap.  xv. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      425 

supernatural  life  so  soon  as  it  ceases  to  oppose  an  obstacle 
to  the  constant  inspiration  which  labors  to  convert  it. 

The  soul,  in  its  natural  state,  beholds  itself,  and  sees  the 
light  of  God  in  the  mirror  which  is  itself,  and  that  light  is 
its  reason.  If  it  turns,  beneath  the  watchful  grace  of  God, 
if  it  turns  from  itself  to  God,  these  same  rays  which  it  saw 
reflected  and  oblique  in  the  mirror,  it  sees  in  the  direction 
whence  they  came,  and  its  gaze  follows  them  to  their  source ; 
and  that  gaze  is  the  vision  of  God,  when  the  eye  is  capable 
of  seeing,  which  can  only  be  after  our  earthly  journey  is 
over ;  it  is  faith,  as  obscure  as  you  like,  while  the  eye  of  the 
soul  is  not  yet  fashioned  to  the  supernatural  light  and  thinks 
itself  blinded  by  it. 

This  does  not  mean  that  God  sheds  his  light  and  his  gifts 
continuously  and  uniformly,  like  the  sun,  and  that  every 
man  does  with  them  simply  what  he  will.  The  comparison 
would  be  unworthy  of  God.  If  God  were  only  an  impassive 
sun,  he  would  be  merely  an  element,  and  not  the  free  and 
omnipotent  Master  of  all  creatures,  the  Father  of  men,  full 
of  wisdom  and  full  of  love. 

The  eternal  sun  of  justice  is  not  an  impassive  sun.  Have 
we  not  said  above,  regarding  this  comparison,  that  even  the 
star  scintillates,  and  the  sidereal  light  has  its  motions  and  its 
pulses  ?  Now,  the  wisdom  of  God,  his  goodness,  his  love, 
have  infinitely  more  elements,  more  approximations  towards 
the  soul  to  save  it  and  elevate  it,  than  the  starry  sky  has  to 
provoke  and  lift  our  glance.  The  light  of  God,  which  we 
perceive  directly  or  indirectly,  as  it  is  supernatural  or  nat- 
ural, is  continually  scintillating,  veiling  itself,  revealing  itself, 
increasing,  vanishing,  again  increasing,  and  this  in  accord 
with  the  infinite  calculations  of  an  infinite  love  and  infinite 
wisdom,  diversely  applied  to  each  soul  and  to  each  moment 
of  each  soul,  to  save  all. 

God  shows  his  natural  light  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul  only 


436  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

to  engage  the  soul  to  turn  and  behold  himself,  who  is  su- 
pernatural ;  and  this  intention  itself  is  grace.  This  is  the 
meaning  of  Saint  Augustine's  words,  which  I  cannot  too 
often  repeat :  "  The  eternal  Wisdom  incessantly  addresses 
the  rational  creature,  to  the  end  that  it  may  be  converted 
to  him  who  is." 

II 

Saint  Augustine  elsewhere  develops  wonderfully  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two  lights,  as  well  as  the  relation  and 
the  passage  of  one  to  the  other,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
double  gaze  which  man  fixes  on  himself  or  on  God ;  when 
he  compares  to  the  twilight  of  evening  the  gaze  which  man 
fixes  on  himself,  and  to  morning  that  other  gaze  which 
he  fixes  directly  on  God.  "After  the  darkness,"  he  says, 
"  comes  the  morning ;  after  the  view  which  man  has  taken 
of  his  own  nature,  which  is  not  God,  he  goes  on  to  praise 
the  light  which  is  God,  contemplation  of  whom  reveals  it."  l 
"When  the  book  of  Genesis  tells  us  of  the  evening  and 
the  morning  which  follow  after  each  other,  the  evening  is 
the  knowledge  which  man  gains  of  self,  and  through  which 
he  sees  that  he  is  not  God  ;  but  the  morning,  which  succeeds 
that  evening,  and  which  begins  the  ensuing  day,  is  the  con- 
version in  which  man  refers  his  creation  to  the  Creator's 
power.  Twilight  returns  when  the  mind  beholds  the  crea- 
tion, no  longer  as  before  in  the  Word,  but  actually  in  the 
creation  itself ;  then  the  morning,  when  the  mind  again 
turns  to  praising  God,  and  to  seeking  fresh  knowledge  in  the 
Word  itself.  "  Yes,"  continues  Saint  Augustine,  "  there  is 
an  essential  difference  between  the  knowledge  of  a  being  in 
the  Word  of  God,  and  the  knowledge  of  that  being  in  its  own 
nature ;  the  first  is  truly  day,  and  the  other  twilight.  Com- 
pared to  that  bright  light  which  we  may  see  in  the  Word 

1  De  Genesi  ad  litteram,  lib.  iv.  cap.  xxii.  et  xxiii. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     437 

itself,  all  knowledge  by  which  we  see  a  creature  alone, 
may  really  be  called  night ;  although  that  night  itself,  com- 
pared to  the  darkness  and  utter  ignorance  of  those  who 
know  not  even  the  creature,  may,  in  its  turn,  be  called  light. 
It  is  thus  that  the  life  of  the  soul  with  faith,  although  still 
in  the  world  and  the  flesh,  compared  to  the  life  without 
faith  and  without  piety,  may  justly  be  called  light  and  day  ; 
in  the  words  of  the  Apostle :  You  were  darkness  at  first,  and 
now  you  are  light  in  God." 

And  here  Saint  Augustine  displays  the  depths  of  his 
genius,  when  he  shows  that  in  the  everlasting  home  both 
lights  will  endure.1  To  see  immutably  the  eternal  reasons 
of  men  in  the  immutable  light  of  the  Word,  and  men  in 
themselves  ;  then  to  refer  to  the  glory  of  God  this  knowledge 
of  the  creation,  —  is  not  this  morning,  evening,  broad  day  ? 
In  this  sense,  who  would  venture  to  say  that  the  celestial  city 
either  does  not  contemplate  the  eternity  of  the  Creator,  or 
else  is  ignorant  of  this  mutable  creation,  knows  not  how  to 
praise  the  Creator  in  this  secondary  knowledge  ?  Day,  twi- 
light, morning,  all  exist  there  simultaneously.  Yes,  in  that 
land  of  spirits  there  is  always  and  at  the  same  time  the  light 
of  day,  endless  day,  in  the  contemplation  of  immutable  truth ; 
the  light  of  evening  in  the  sight  of  the  creation  itself ;  and 
the  light  of  morning,  and  a  perpetual  morning,  in  the  return 
of  that  inferior  knowledge  to  God  to  praise  him. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  whole  theory  of  light,  or,  if  you 
prefer,  of  the  two  lights  and  of  their  relation.  The  mind,  if 
it  behold  itself  or  creation,  only  sees  the  light  mixed  with 
shadows,  the  evening  light,  the  light  of  reason,  purely  natural. 
If  it  behold  God  in  himself,  it  is  the  perfect  day  ;  and  if  on 
beholding  the  creation  it  raise  its  eye  at  once  to  God  to  thank 
him  for  his  work,  it  is  the  morning  which  begins  the  day ; 
it  is  reason  seeking  another  and  better  light  than  itself ;  it  is 

1  De  Genesi  ad  litteram,  lib.  iv.  cap.  xxix.  et  xxx. 


438  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

reason  receiving,  through  God's  grace,  faith,  the  initial  attempt 
of  vision  to  attain  full  vision. 

I  cannot  conceive  that  an  attentive  mind,  face  to  face  with 
these  data  of  the  highest  reason  and  of  the  great  and  holy 
Catholic  tradition,  a  mind  familiar  with  the  history  of  the 
struggles,  the  mistakes,  or  the  glories,  the  strange  and  con- 
tinued movements  of  human  thought,  and  acquainted  above 
all  with  its  *own  individual  history  and  those  of  its  very 
variable,  very  uncertain  thoughts,  which  faint  and  fall, 
which  rise  again,  which  never  cease  to  seek  the  perfect  day, 
which  often  think  that  they  have  reached  the  dawn,  but 
merely  possess  a  waning,  paling  light,  soon  vanishing  into 
night,  —  I  cannot  conceive,  I  say,'  that  such  a  mind,  meditat- 
ing on  these  data,  as  philosophic  as  they  are  Christian, 
should  fail  at  last  to  discover  therein  its  law,  its  rule,  and  the 
true  theory  of  light  as  Christ  has  made  it  known  to  us. 

Will  men  never  observe  their  souls,  and  will  they  never 
understand  the  practical  conditions  of  light  ?  Will  they 
never  see  in  themselves  that  struggle  between  darkness  and 
light  of  which  they  are  really  the  umpires  ?  Will  they 
never  see  why  these  "beginnings  of  morning  light  do  not  at- 
tain to  the  full  light  of  day,  but  soon  turn  to  evening,  and 
why  the  evening  shades  so  soon  change  to  darkness  ?  Why 
these  long  slumbers  of  the  soul  during  which  there  is  no 
longer  any  suspicion  of  daylight  ?  Why,  at  long  intervals, 
these  attempts  and  allurements  of  lights  which  penetrate  us 
without  our  aid  ?  Is  it  so  hard  to  conclude  from  these  facts 
that  there  is  a  light  which  is  not  we,  and  that  if  it  appear  to 
us  veiled,  mutable,  intermittent  in  regard  to  us,  it  is  because 
we  are  ourselves  variable,  mutable,  and  veiled  in  its  presence : 
as  we  now  know  that  it  is  not  the  sun  which  revolves, 
but  the  earth  which  moves  and  passes,  is  veiled  and  turns 
away,  while  the  sun  remains  always  motionless  and  radiant  ? 

Let  no  one  consider  these  as  empty  phrases,  but  rather  as 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      439 

very  practical  conclusions.  And  may  the  healthy  soul  which 
reads  these  pages  find  therein,  as  it  meditates  on  the  holy 
doctors  whom  we  quote,  efficacious  lights  and  assured  prin- 
ciples to  guide  its  advance  in  one  or  the  other  of  these  two 
ways,  or  successively  in  both:  intelligence  seeking  faith, 
faith  seeking  intelligence ! 

Let  us  repeat  what  has  just  been  said,  in  order  to  with- 
draw into  ourselves,  to  descend  into  the  soul  in  presence  of 
these  truths,  to  the  end  that  we  may  judge  of  our  intellec- 
tual life  and  regulate  its  course  for  the  future. 

I  am  not  the  source  of  the  light  which  is  within  me  :  that 
source  is  he  who  is  luminous  of  himself ;  but  the  cause  of 
vicissitudes,  intermittences,  diminutions,  and  obscurities,  is 
myself. 

There  is  therefore  an  obstacle  in  me ;  there  is  therefore  a 
struggle  to  be  made :  for  I  am  made  for  the  light,  I  must 
reach  it,  and  I  desire  to  do  so. 

But  the  first  obstacle,  clearly,  is  that  I  do  not  desire  it 
with  sufficient  ardor.  I  do  indeed  feel  some  attraction 
towards  it ;  but  this  is  its  constant  attraction,  which  proceeds 
from  it,  and  not  from  me.  I  myself  seek  that  attraction  but 
little  ;  I  do  not  add  all  my  powers  to  it,  and  it  is,  as  it  were, 
inactive  on  my  side. 

Such  is  the  inevitable  confession  of  every  sincere  soul. 

Well,  active  response  to  the  attraction,  that  is,  prayer  to 
him  who  attracts  us,  this  is  the  starting-point  for  a  more 
luminous  life.  The  possibility  of  prayer,  the  grace  of  prayer, 
is  always  offered  to  us ;  and  this  attracting  grace  is  as  con- 
tinuous as  physical  attraction  among  the  stars. 

To  unite  our  strength  to  this  divine  attraction  is  the  first 
endeavor  after  wisdom. 

But  why  is  all  light,  in  the  habitual  state  of  my  soul,  as  in 
the  state  of  most  souls,  even  when  I  have  prayed,  evening 
light,  that  is  to  say,  fading  and  turning  to  night  ? 


440  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

Because  you  look,  as  Saint  Augustine  says,  only  into  crea- 
tures, or  into  yourself ;  inclination  towards  self,  inclination 
towards  inferior  creatures,  keeps  your  gaze  downward.  Every 
luminous  datum  of  the  ray,  which  returns  at  intervals,  as  the 
mystics  express  it,  being  applied  by  you  only  to  creatures 
and  yourself,  soon  becomes  exhausted  there,  and  is  changed 
to  darkness. 

Do  you  know  what  that  luminous  datum  would  be  if  we 
could  succeed  in  seeing  it  without  this  tendency  of  limited 
love  for  created  beings  and  self  ?  It  would  be  matinal  and 
increasing. 

Thus  the  obstacle  to  be  overcome  is  the  tendency  towards 
created  beings.  It  must  be  conquered,  so  that  God  shall  no 
longer  be  prevented  from  turning  you  towards  him,  —  him 
who  never  ceases  to  address  you  to  effect  this  divine  return. 

Aided  by  God,  who  forewarns  us  by  the  inspirations  of 
conscience,  and  moreover  by  the  increase  which  his  bounty 
occasionally  lends  to  the  light  of  reason  to  rouse  us ;  urged 
on  moreover  by  the  perpetual  offer  of  grace,  which  is  the 
presence  of  God  himself  striving  to  convert  us ;  borne  along 
by  so  many  forces,  —  we  needs  must  act,  needs  must  destroy 
the  obstacle.  God  will  then  convert  us,  and  we  shall  move 
from  natural  to  supernatural  light. 

When  a  soul,  by  the  grace  of  God,  reaches  this  point,  it 
indeed  turns  to  God.  A  deep  horror  of  the  past,  a  birth- 
pang,  a  great  hope  in  the  divine  future,  take  possession  of 
the  heart;  the  supernatural  love  of  God  fills  it,  and  the 
transformation  is  effected.  A  new  series  of  works,  of  sacri- 
fices, of  labors,  and  of  endeavors  which  lead  to  God,  raise  the 
soul  from  radiance  to  radiance  in  increasing  light.  Then  the 
luminous  data,  the  increments  of  the  divine  ray,  become 
morning  light,  and  change  to  day. 

But  I  have  not  made  myself  clear.  I  must  find  other 
words  and  newer  semblances  for  these  ancient  data  of  wis- 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     441 

dom ;  I  must  invent  forms  to  captivate  the  attention  which 
glides  over  all  familiar  words  and  purposes. 

Do  you  believe  in  the  mutual  penetration  of  minds  ?  Do 
you  believe  that,  independent  of  word  and  voice,  indepen- 
dent of  distance,  from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other, 
minds  can  influence  and  penetrate  one  another  ? l  Do  you 
believe,  as  Fenelon  says,  that  in  God  all  men  meet?  Do 
you  believe  that  a  thought,  a  movement,  a  love,  an  impulse, 
can  reach  you  by  the  secret  influence  of  the  heart  and  mind 
of  another?  Or  rather  do  you  not  know  that  every  soul 
continually  lives  by  the  movement  of  other  souls,  resists, 
yields  to,  agrees  perpetually  with  them  ?  Do  you  not  know 
that  a  soul  can  feel  within  it  another  soul  which  touches  it  ? 
If  you  do  not  know  this,  you  do  not  know  the  every-day 
things  of  earth ;  how  then  can  you  comprehend  the  things 
of  heaven  ?  If  you  do  know  it,  if  you  believe  in  this  com- 
munication of  influences  between  souls  and  between  created 
minds,  so  much  the  more  should  you  believe  in  God  within 
you.  Yes,  there  is  near  you,  within  you,  deeper  far  than 
any  created  mind  can  reach,  or  than  you  yourself  can  reach, 
God,  his  influence  and  his  presence,  pervading  your  soul  to 
its  very  root,  and  lower  yet,  to  the  very  bottom  of  all  its 
powers,  and  farther  yet.  And  it  is  not  only  a  divine  and  im- 
mense force,  in  the  bosom  of  which  you  are  plunged,  it  is  a 
mind  which  enlightens  your  mind,  a  heart  which  bears  up 
your  heart. 

Yes,  there  is  within  you  some  one  besides  yourself.  You 
are  not  alone.  Is  it  he,  or  is  it  I  that  speaks  within  me  ? 
said  Saint  Augustine.  There  is,  I  say,  some  one  within  you, 
at  this  moment,  who  looks  upon  you  and  loves  you.  You 
are  scarcely  conscious  of  it,  scarcely  credit  it,  because  your 
soul  is  elsewhere,  absorbed  and  carried  away  by  other  joys, 
other  thoughts,  other  avidities,  other  affections.  Silence 

1  Catech.  Trident.,  pars  iia,  de  Pcenitent.,  xi. 


442  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

these,  and  you  will  soon  feel  the  presence  and  attraction  of 
him  who  has  long  addressed  you,  looked  upon  you,  and 
loved  you.  You  will  then  feel  and  see  clearly  within  you 
the  two  directions  of  life,  and  you  can  choose  between  them ; 
you  can  turn  your  whole  soul  towards  him  who  was  first  to 
love  you,  and  whose  infinite  power  can  produce  the  marvel 
of  a  change  of  soul,  and  make  of  a  soul  a  new  soul,  by  giving 
it  the  divine  power  to  be  born  again  in  the  likeness  of  the 
Well-Beloved  who  penetrates  and  inspires  it. 

Understand,  therefore,  in  what  sense  Jesus  Christ  said,  "  I 
am  the  beginning  of  all  things,  I  who  speak  in  you ; "  and 
Saint  John  the  Baptist  said,  "  He  stands  in  the  midst  of  you, 
him  whom  you  know  not."  And  understand  that  admirable 
commentary  by  Thomassin  which  shows  us  the  transition 
from  one  of  the  two  lights  to  the  other,  and  from  reason  to 
faith,  by  him  who  is  the  primary  cause  of  reason  and  faith  : 

" '  He  is  in  the  midst  of  you,  him  whom  you  know  not,'  says 
the  Gospel.  Thus  no  soul  is  born  without  Jesus  Christ.  Thus 
Christ  is  revealed  within  us,  rather  within  us  than  to  us,  since  it 
is  he  whose  germ  nature  deposits  within  us  when  she  sows  in  our 
soul  the  seeds  of  the  eternal  law.  It  is  thus  that  he  occupies 
the  middle  and  centre  of  every  soul,  to  the  end  that  he  may  en- 
lighten all.  So  that  even  those  whom  the  Gospel  and  preachers 
can  only  touch  externally,  are  stimulated  and  solicited  by  Christ 
inwardly,  by  Christ,  —  that  is  to  say,  by  reason*  itself,  the  eternal 
law,  the  innate  germ  of  virtue.  Let  those,  therefore,  cultivate 
that  germ,  let  them  conquer  vice  and  all  its  guilty  loves,  and 
Christ,  growing  ever  more  and  more  within  their  breast,  shall 
reveal  himself  there  in  all  the  fulness  of  religion  and  faith."  ] 

Do  you  understand  now  the  transition  from  reason  to 
faith  ? 

1  De  Incarnat. ,  1.  i.  cap.  ix.  This  admirable  passage,  with  those  which 
follow,  requires  to  be  thoroughly  understood,  not  to  be  interpreted  in  a  different 
sense  from  that  which  Thomassin  certainly  attached  to  it.  To  say  that  "  na- 
ture begins  to  bring  forth  Christ  within  us,"  is  an  expression  which,  taken  liter- 
ally, would  be  false.  It  is  not  nature  which  brings  forth  Christ  within  us, 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     443 

Thomassin  constantly  recurs  to  these  capital  truths.     He 

says,  — 

"  Christ  is  Virtue  itself  humanly  developed.  No  man  is  born 
without  Christ,  because  no  man  is  born  without  the  germ  of  vir- 
tues. Thus  the  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  is  as  it  were  inoculated 
into  all  men,  because  nature  labors  to  make  every  mind  know 
and  love  good  and  the  eternal  law.  To  believe  in  Christ  we 
must  not  go  outside  of  self,  but  withdraw  into  self,  to  seek  God 
and  find  Christ  already  present  in  our  heart  and  in  the  very 
breath  of  our  life.  Whoever,  therefore,  practises  a  virtue  as 
being  virtue,  the  divine  spark,  an  emanation  from  the  eternal  law, 
and  not  as  a  vain  flower  of  human  glory,  —  that  man  practises 
Christ,  that  man  is  a  Christian.1 

"  Hence,  to  become  a  Christian  we  need  not  travel  afar,  but  retire 
into  our  own  self :  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  us,  says  Jesus 
Christ ;  and  when  any  man  finds  his  reason,  submits  it  to  the  eter- 
nal reason,  and  submits  his  body  to  both,  that  man  becomes  a  par- 
ticipant in  Christ.  This  is  why  Saint  Paul  says  that  it  is  not 
needful  to  seek  Christ  afar  off,  to  bring  him  down  from  above, 
since  he  is  in  the  heart,  in  the  soul,  and  in  the  mouth  of  every 
man.  It  is  not  needful  to  traverse  the  earth,  or  to  traverse  the 
seas,  to  find  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  in  the  centre  of  every  soul ; 
for  he  is  only  the  perfect  and  Sovereign  reason  descended  into 
humanity."  2 

III. 

After  such  words,  so  profound  and  so  inspired,  it  only 
remains  for  us  to  hear,  upon  this  great  subject,  Jesus 
himself  revealing  to  us,  from  his  visible  mouth  and  in 

but  grace.  But  if  it  be  certain  that  God  mingles  the  germ  of  grace,  the  begin- 
ning of  the  supernatural  gift,  with  the  remants  of  kindly  nature,  as  Fenelon 
puts  it ;  if  it  be  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  same  Word  is  at  once  the 
principle  of  both  natural  and  supernatural  light;  and  if  it  incessantly  offer 
both  to  the  soul,  —  we  understand  that  nature,  forewarned  and  aided  by  grace, 
prepares  the  soul  for  the  birth  of  the  new  man  ;  or  rather  that  the  Word  itself, 
the  principle  of  nature  and  of  grace,  prepares  its  ways  in  the  soul  by  grace  and 
by  nature,  and  is  developed  there  when  the  soul  opposes  no  obstacles. 

1  De  Incarnat.,  lib.  i.  cap.  ix.  2  Ibid. 


444  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

articulate  words,  the   laws    of   eternal  life  and  the  genesis 
of  light. 

A  learned  man  sought  Jesus  Christ  by  night.  This  man  had 
reached  that  degree  of  human  wisdom  which  seeks  and  longs 
for  the  wisdom  of  God  and  desires  to  see  God.  He  questioned 
the  Saviour,  who  replied :  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee, 
Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of 
God."1 

Such  is  the  truth.  Man  must  be  born  again,  to  enter  into 
the  second  degree  of  the  intelligible,  and  to  see  the  actual 
light  of  God. 

But,  said  the  wise  man,  "  How  can  a  man  be  born  when 
he  is  old  ?  Can  he  enter  the  second  time  into  the  womb  of 
his  mother,  and  be  born  ?  Jesus  answered,  Marvel  not  that  I 
said  unto  theey  Ye  must  be  born  again.  .  .  .  Art  thou  a  mas- 
ter of  Israel,  and  Jcnowest  not  these  things  ?  "  '2  The  Saviour 
is  amazed  that  the  doctors,  whose  duty  it  is  to  lead  men 
to  God,  do  not  know  that  a  man  must  be  born  again  to  see 
God.  And  he  at  once  explains  his  reproach  by  words  which 
reveal  the  innermost  depths  of  the  history  of  the  human 
mind :  "  If  I  have  told  you  earthly  things,  and  ye  believe  not, 
hou*  shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  heavenly  things?"'6 

In  other  words :  If  I,  who  am  a  light  to  all  men  coming 
into  this  world,  cannot  convince  you  when  I  speak  to  you 
through  reason,  — if  you  do  not  heed  your  reason,  the  light 
which  should  guide  you  on  earth,  —  how  will  you  heed  me 
and  understand  me  when,  in  the  very  light  of  God,  I  strive 
to  show  you  heaven  ? 

How  could  the  human  mind  attain  total  wisdom  and  the 
last  degree  of  the  divine  intelligible,  which  is  the  sight  of 
heaven,  wherein  it  does  not  dwell,  in  the  light  of  God,  which 
it  does  not  possess,  if  it  cannot  even  see  correctly  the  earth 
wherein  it  dwells,  in  human  light  which  is  its  proper  light  ? 
1  John  iii.  3.  2  Ibid.,  4,  7,  10.  »  Ibid.,  12. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      445 

But,  as  Christ  teaches,  it  is  not  by  our  own  powers  that 
we  are  asked  to  rise  towards  this  faith  in  higher  things  and 
towards  the  sight  of  heaven.  "  No  man  hath  ascended  up 
to  heaven  but  he  who  came  down  from  heaven,  even  the  Son 
of  man  who  is  in  heaven."  l  This  text  includes  all  Chris- 
tianity. Man  cannot  ascend  to  heaven  by  his  own  unaided 
powers ;  reason,  by  its  unaided  powers,  cannot  attain  the  celes- 
tial degree  of  the  divine  light.  Man,  of  himself,  cannot  make 
himself  divine,  or  enter  into  participation  of  the  divine  nature, 
any  more  than  the  finite  can  rise  to  the  infinite.  We  do  not 
become  infinite.  For  that  we  must  have  already  been  in 
heaven  ;  we  must  have  come  down  from  heaven  to  ascend 
up  into  it.  The  Son  of  man  who  ascends  up  into  heaven  is 
he  who,  being  one  with  God  himself,  is  already  in  heaven,  — 
this  Son  of  man,  who  by  a  whole  lifetime  of  suffering,  sorrow, 
and  sacrifice,  and  by  his  cross,  shall  raise  himself  to  the  throne 
of  God  for  the  salvation  of  all ;  for,  he  adds,  "As  Moses  lifted 
up  the  serpent  of  bronze  in  the  wilderness  [to  heal  the  people], 
even  so  must  the  Son  of  man  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth :  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal 
life." 2  And  elsewhere  he  says :  "  And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up 
from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  mtn  unto  me."  3 

So,  to  pass  from  earthly  things  to  heavenly  things  we 
must  be  born  again.  To  pass  from  the  lower  degree  of  the 
divine  intelligible  to  the  higher,  —  that  is  to  say,  to  see 
God,  —  we  must  have  a  new  life.  We  must  have  the  life 
of  faith,  of  that  faith  which  believes  the  eternal  Wisdom 
when  it  tells  us  of  heavenly  things,  —  as  in  order  to  be  in 
reason,  in  the  first  degree  of  the  divine  intelligible,  we  must 
have  faith  in  Wisdom  when  it  tells  us  of  earthly  things, 
and  teaches  us  that  the  earth  should  bear  witness  to  God 
and  show  reflections  from  heaven.  To  possess  total  wis- 
dom, we  must  believe  in  the  Word  of  God,  according  to 

i  John  iii.  13.  2  Il>i<l.,  14,  15.  8  Ibid.,  xii.  32. 


446  GUIDE  TO  TEE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

these  two  lights,  natural  and  supernatural,  which  he  sheds 
within  us. 

But  how  can  we  he  born  again  ?  How  can  we  pass  from 
the  first  region  of  light  into  the  second,  where  the  inacces- 
sible majesty  of  God  dwells  ?  How  can  we  rise  from  earth 
to  heaven  ?  This  is  the  business  of  God  himself ;  it  is  the 
work  of  the  incarnate  Word,  of  him  who  came  down  from 
heaven  to  our  own  nature,  to  the  end  that  he  might  raise  us 
up  with  him.  Put  your  whole  faith  in  him,  and  he  will  lift 
you  up  to  see  God. 

But  how  are  we  to  believe  ?  And  how  are  we  to  cling  to 
him?  Thus.  Hear  the  Saviour  uttering  the  simplest  and 
the  grandest  words  ever  uttered  in  this  world  in  regard 
to  the  search  after  wisdom  and  the  obstacle  to  wisdom.  It  is 
the  history  of  free  choice  between  darkness  and  light.  It  is 
the  practical  genesis  of  light :  "  He  that  lelieveth  on  the  Son 
of  God  is  not  condemned :  but  he  that  believeth  not,  is  con- 
demned already.  This  is  the  condemnation.  Light  is  come 
into  the  world,  and  men  loved  darkness  rather  than  light, 
because  their  deeds  were  evil.  For  every  one  that  doeth  evil 
hateth  the  light,  neither  cometh  to  the  light,  lest  his  deeds 
should  le  revealed.  But  he  that  DOETH  TRUTH  cometh  to  the 
light,  that  his  deeds  may  le  made  manifest,  that  they  are 
wrought  in  God."  l 

The  divine  simplicity  of  these  words  of  the  Master  admits 
of  no  commentary,  and  their  supernatural  power  seems  fitted 
to  seize  and  lead  captive  every  soul  which  ever  loved  truth 
but  for  a  single  day. 

Is  there,  or  is  there  not,  a  manifest  and  direct  certitude 
that  these  words  are  the  infallible  truth  ? 

Can  you  hope  to  make  any  advance  whatsoever  towards 
wisdom  and  light,  without  a  corresponding  moral  effort  ? 

Do  you  understand  that  there  is  no  other  salutary  philoso- 

1  John  iii.  18-21. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      447 

phy  save  that  which  is  an  effort  towards  total  wisdom,  —  a 
pursuit  of  light  in  both  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible  ? 

Do  you  understand  that  if  you  seek  the  truth  without 
seeking  virtue,  the  primary  practical  wisdom,  you  are  not 
really  seeking  for  truth,  you  are  only  feigning  to  do  so,  and 
you  are  but  a  pharisee,  a  scribe,  like  those  who  rejected 
Christ  ?  And  if,  by  some  amazing  preoccupation,  you  are 
content  with  such  light  as  mere  reason  can  give  you,  with- 
out the  grace  of  God,  without  divine  faith,  you  are  already 
judged, — you  dwell  in  the  region  of  shadows,  and  in  that 
degree  of  light  which  the  Gospel  calls  Darkness. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

RELATIONS   BETWEEN   REASON  AND   FAITH.      RESUME*  AND 
CONCLUSION. 

I. 

n^O  sum  up. 

There  is  God.  There  is  the  soul.  God,  the  eternal 
wisdom,  never  ceases  to  address  the  rational  creature,  to 
the  end  that  it  may  be  converted  unto  him.  God  never 
ceases  to  solicit  the  soul  by  his  twofold  assistance,  by  his 
twofold  natural  and  supernatural  light. 

God  alone  is  light.  God  alone  is  the  Father  of  all  light, 
both  natural  and  supernatural. 

Natural  light  is  the  light  of  God  reflected  in  our  soul  or  in 
the  mirror  of  created  beings ;  and  supernatural  light  is  the 
light  of  God  seen  in  its  source,  directly  and  immediately. 

Natural  light  constitutes  human  reason  properly  so  called, 
and  is  its  source.  "  The  light  of  reason''  says  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas,  "  is  the  image  of  the  uncreated  truth  reflected  in  our 
soul"  These  are  the  most  important  and  profound  words 
ever  uttered  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  reason. 

Supernatural  light  is  the  source  of  divine  faith.  Faith  is 
the  attempt  at,  the  faint  and  feeble  beginning  of,  the  vision 
of  God  himself,  in  his  essence  and  in  the  source  of  his  light. 

There  are  two  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible,  —  that 
which  reason  may  attain,  and  that  which  can  be  attained 
only  by  faith  and  revelation.  Reason  has  its  own  sphere 
and  its  relative  perfection,  in  the  first  degree  of  the  intelli- 
gible. But  it  cannot  find  there,  of  its  own  unaided  powers, 
its  entire  natural  development.  It  only  reaches  its  final 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     449 

perfection,  in   the  second  degree   of   the  intelligible,  when 
aided  and  raised  above  itself  by  the  supernatural  light. 

Sound  reason  is  that  which  is  not  parted  from  its  source 
in  the  soul  and  in  God.  The  source  of  reason  is  the  light 
itself  which  God  gives.  The  origin  in  the  soul  of  this  gift 
is  variously  called  divine  sense,  natural  faith,  the  attraction 
of  the  desirable  and  the  intelligible,  the  hidden  spring.  The 
actual  moment,  or,  if  you  prefer,  the  point,  at  which  the  nat- 
ural light  of  God  touches  and  solicits  the  soul,  —  that  point, 
that  moment,  that  root,  that  gift,  as  you  may  choose  to  call  it, 
is  the  source  of  reason.  Sound  reason  is  that  which  is  not 
parted  from  this  source  in  the  centre  of  the  soul,  and  which 
finds  in  this  faith  its  orientation,  in  this  hidden  spring  its 
impulse  towards  truth,  and  in  this  divine  sense  or  contact  its 
assurance. 

Perverted  reason  is  that  which  breaks,  in  so  far  as  it 
may,  with  this  source,  with  this  heart,  as  Pascal  says,  with 
this  divine  sense,  with  this  faith,  with  the  attraction  of  the 
desirable  and  the  intelligible.  But  as  absolute  rupture  with 
God.  is  impossible  for  any  being  or  any  power,  perverted 
reason  is  that  which  unceasingly  labors  to  cut  itself  off  from 
its  source,  its  pursuing  source.  Whence  follows  one  thing 
only,  —  an  advance  in  a  direction  contrary  to  that  of  correct 
reason,  and,  as  history  proves,  an  advance  towards  the  noth- 
ingness of  thought,  instead  of  an  advance  towards  the  vision 
of  being  ;  a  logical  advance  backwards,  which,  instead  of  dis- 
playing the  consequences  of  first  principles,  actually  denies 
first  principles  themselves,  both  speculative  and  practical. 
It  is  in  some  sort  reprobate  reason,  which  God  urges  to 
absurdity,  —  that  is,  to  an  indirect  demonstration  of  the 
truth. 

Between  these  two  contrary  courses,  between  these  two 
mental  states,  of  which  one  elevates  and  the  other  degrades, 
between  sound  reason  and  perverse  reason,  there  is  the 

29 


450  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

sluggish  reason,  which  does  not  advance,  which  does  not 
ascend,  but  which  does  not  yet  decidedly  descend;  which 
does  not  gravitate  towards  Being,  but  which  does  not,  as  yet, 
rush  towards  nothingness;  which  does  not  deny  the  first 
principles,  but  yet  is  unable  to  derive  anything  from  them, 

—  which,  according  to  Plato,  fluctuates  towards  the  middle 
region,  without  ever  rising  to  the  highest. 

Let  me  represent  these  different  mental  states  by  a 
comparison. 

The  rational  soul  was  created  to  see  God,  —  very  God,  in 
his  essence,  —  as  the  eagle,  we  are  told,  to  look  the  sun  in 
the  face. 

Imagine  an  eagle  on  the  shore  of  a  lake  in  which  the  im- 
age of  the  sun  shines :  the  eagle  may  be  content  with  looking 
at  the  image,  without  lifting  his  gaze  to  the  object  itself. 

It  may,  —  but  eagles  never  do;   then  why  should  men? 

—  it  may  take  its  flight  towards  the  image,  and  fling  itself 
into  the  lake,  where  it  at  once  ceases  to  see,  and  at  the  same 
time  loses  both  the  image  and  the  object. 

Again,  it  may,  excited  by  the  image,  lift  its  gaze,  unfold 
its  wings,  and  direct  its  course  straight  towards  the  sun 
itself,  as  if  attracted  by  the  rays  which  its  eyes  drink  in. 
This  is  what  eagles  do ;  and  it  is  this  sublime  action, 
this  flight  towards  the  source  of  light,  which  charms  man- 
kind, and  has  gained  the  king  of  air  the  glory  of  being  the 
poetic  symbol  of  the  sublimities  of  the  mind. 

Thus  with  the  gaze  of  the  soul. 

Our  soul  is  both  eagle  and  lake. 

Sometimes  we  gaze  stupidly  at  the  lake,  without  distin- 
guishing the  water  itself  from  the  rays  of  light  which  it 
reflects,  without  distinguishing  the  mobile  surface  from 
the  fixed  image  whose  spherical  form  rests  beneath  the 
ripples.  This  is  the  sluggish  reason  and  the  sterile  philoso- 
phy of  the  learned  men  who  have  not  wisdom. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     451 

Sometimes  these  contrasts  warn  us,  and  we  begin  to  un- 
derstand that  the  light  is  not  ourselves,  that  there  is  only 
an  image  there,  a  reflected  light,  the  source  of  which  is  not 
within  us,  and  that  this  passive  water  is  of  itself  cold  and 
dark.  We  understand  that  there  is  outside  us  an  object 
whence  the  light  comes  to  us  and  which  the  image  pre- 
supposes. Sound  reason  advances  thus  towards  the  truth. 

But  instinct  spares  the  eagle,  and  a  diviner  instinct,  if 
we  had  not  first  stifled  it  in  our  soul,  would  also  spare  us,  the 
vertigo  with  which  we  are  sometimes  seized,  —  the  strange 
vertigo  of  a  being  who  has  wings  and  uses  them  to  hurl 
himself  into  an  abyss  that  he  may  seek  the  Sun  there ! 
Yes,  we  hurl  ourselves  into  the  abyss,  where  we  cease  to  see, 
where  we  lose  both  image  and  object.  This  catastrophe  is 
that  of  perverse  reason,  and  history  shows  that  many  minds 
have  chosen  and  yielded  to  it,  seeking  the  source  itself  of 
light  in  their  own  innermost  depths,  digging  out  the  image 
below  the  image,  —  below  the  surface  of  the  lake,  —  to  dis- 
cover its  luminous  and  burning  roots  in  the  water.  It  is 
thus  that  some  have  sought,  in  reason  itself,  the  objective  and 
first  principle  of  reason,  and  that  thought  has  plunged  to  the 
bottom  of  the  shadowy  abyss  which  exists  in  the  soul,  below 
the  luminous  point  which  God  lights  up  from  above. 

Lastly,  the  soul,  stimulated  by  the  splendor  of  the  reflec- 
tion, and  by  the  contrast  between  the  dark,  moving  lake, 
and  the  glittering  and  motionless  image,  may  conclude  that 
the  lake  is  not  the  object,  but  the  mirror;  it  may  seek 
the  object,  it  may  raise  its  eyes  and  seize  the  direct  ray  in- 
stead of  the  reflected  ray ;  and,  as  it  has  wings  far  more 
powerful  than  those  of  the  eagle,  it  may  take  its  flight,  soar 
towards  the  divine  Sun,  not  in  sport  like  the  eagle,  but 
with  a  genuine  impulse  which  ends  in  and  is  united  with 
the  principle  of  life.  "For  the  eagle,"  says  Saint  Fran- 
cis de  Sales,  "  has  greater  powers  of  vision  than  of  flight ;  " 


452  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

but  the  soul,  aided  by  God,  bas  equal  power  of  flight  and 
of  vision. 

Let  us  carry  this  comparison  a  little  farther,  to  show  what 
reason  is  capable  of  doing  by  its  own  movements  alone,  and 
what  it  is  incapable  of  doing  unaided  by  the  supernatural 
light. 

The  eye  is  the  reason,  the  reflected  ray  is  the  natural  light, 
and  the  direct  ray  is  the  supernatural  light. 

What  can  the  eye  do  by  the  aid  of  each  light  ? 

The  eye  by  the  reflected  ray  alone  sees  the  image  of  the 
sun,  not  the  sun :  that  is  absolutely  impossible ;  it  would  be 
a  contradiction  in  terms.  When  we  see  the  sun  itself,  it  is 
necessarily  by  its  direct  rays. 

The  eye,  by  contrasting  the  mutability  of  the  mirror  and 
the  immutability  of  the  image,  distinguishes  between  the  two, 
and  concludes  that  the  image  comes  from  some  object  other 
than  the  mirror.  The  eye  refers  the  traces  of  the  image  to 
a  real  being  which  it  does  not  see.  Such  is  the  knowledge 
of  God  and  his  attributes,  separated  from  created  beings  and 
viewed  in  the  necessary  and  immutable  ideas  which  the  soul 
finds  in  itself. 

But  does  the  eye  know  the  entire  image  as  it  is  ?  No, 
certainly  not ;  for  instance,  it  sees  it  as  a  disk,  when  it  is 
really  a  sphere. 

Again,  it  errs  in  referring  the  image  to  the  under  part  of  the 
mirror,  instead  of  referring  it  to  the  surface ;  and  it  imagines 
that  it  sees  direct  rays,  while  it  really  sees  reflected  rays. 
Thus  it  will  never  know  the  image  completely  until  it 
knows  the  object,  its  true  situation,  its  relation  to  the  sur- 
face, and  the  mystery  of  reflected  rays  and  direct  rays. 
Nevertheless,  so  soon  as  the  eye  recognizes  that  the  image  is 
not  the  sun,  the  eye  may  be  strained  to  see  the  sun,  to  regret 
that  it  does  not  see  it,  and  to  seek  to  see  it ;  but  evidently 
it  will  riot  see  anything  unless  the  direct  rays  strike  it. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     453 

Leaving  these  comparisons,  we  will  now  say  that  reason 
may,  of  itself  (ipsa  per  se),  by  natural  light  alone,  know  vari- 
ous truths  which  constitute  the  first  degree  of  the  divine 
intelligible,  and  which  have  been  called  preambles  of  faith. 

Reason  cannot,  without  the  aid  of  supernatural  light, 
Jmow  all  the  truth  of  this  first  degree. 

This  insufficiency  of  reason,  even  in  the  natural  order,  — 
that  is,  in  the  first  degree  of  the  divine  intelligible,  —  reason 
may  and  does  recognize,  and  it  proves  the  necessity  of  divine 
revelation,  even  in  this  order  of  truths. 

Eeason  may,  moreover,  —  and  this  is  its  highest  effort,  — 
recognize  that  it  is  not  itself  its  own  absolute  or  first  princi- 
ple, that  its  natural  light  is  only  the  image  of  that  principle, 
and  as  it  were  the  shadow  of  its  light ;  that  this  image  corre- 
sponds to  an  object  which  does  not  exist  in  the  image,  which 
it  does  not  see,  and  which  it  must  be  possible  to  see  directly ; 
it  comprehends  that  we  must  see  the  source  of  light,  the 
essence  of  that  divine  object,  and  that  this  sight  is  necessary 
to  its  supreme  felicity  and  its  final  perfection. 

It  is  of  course  understood  that  this  natural  desire  for  su- 
preme felicity,  that  is,  this  natural  desire  to  see  the  essence 
of  God,  is  radically  different  from  that  other  positive  desire 
which  is  a  beginning  of  the  conception  and  possession  of  the 
supernatural  light.  But  it  is  equally,  of  course,  understood 
that  these  two  sorts  of  desire  for  the  sovereign  Good,  in  fact 
and  in  the  actual  life  of  the  soul,  are  perpetually  blended, 
and  perhaps,  by  the  watchful  goodness  of  God,  succeed  and 
correspond  each  to  the  other,  like  the  two  motions  of  the 
heart. 

But  this  scientific  analysis,  by  which  we  strive  to  dis- 
tinguish exactly  between  the  two  orders  of  the  divine  intel- 
ligible, the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  this  analysis,  which 
is  essential  in  metaphysics,  has  little  value  in  practice  ;  for  no 
soul  is  surrendered  to  itself  without  supernatural  aid  from 


454  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

God.  God  blends,  says  Fe"nelon,  the  beginning  of  the  super- 
natural gift  with  the  remains  of  kindly  nature,  and  man 
bears  within  him  a  mystery  of  grace  of  which  he  is  pro- 
foundly ignorant.  There  are  germs  of  faith  in  the  soul,  and 
no  soul  is  deprived  of  Christ,  says  Saint  Jerome,  whose  words 
are  repeated  and  commented  on  by  Thomassin.  In  fact, 
natural  reason  is  developed,  is  sound,  advances  towards  its 
goal  under  the  influence  of  God's  grace  and  the  natural  and 
supernatural  incitements  of  God.  I  reckon  upon  grace  alone, 
says  Fenelon,  to  guide  my  reason  within  the  limits  of  reason  ; 
and  Perrone,  the  most  decided  defender  of  the  rights  of 
reason,  recognizes  that,  in  our  present  state,  the  germ  of  rea- 
son is  developed  by  the  influence  of  grace. 

So  much  for  practice.  But  for  the  theory  all  the  analytic 
labor  which  precedes  was  necessary,  and  God  grant  that 
it  has  been  given  us  to  maintain  precision ;  for  this  question 
is  assuredly  the  pivot  of  the  human  mind,  —  the  centre  of  phi- 
losophy ;  it  is,  if  we  may  so  express  ourselves,  the  point 
where  the  mind  of  man  and  the  mind  of  God  meet :  there 
we  find  the  relation,  the  means  of  transition,  from  one  to 
the  other.  If  we,  Catholic  theologians,  in  possession  of  the 
truth,  succeed  in  throwing  light  on  this  point  we  shall  have 
done  philosophy  the  greatest  service  ever  done  it.  We  shall 
have  made  a  decisive  effort  towards  the  pacification  of  the 
mind,  the  regeneration  of  knowledge,  and  the  salvation  of 
man.  . 

Why  is  it  not  given  to  us  to  teach  men  to  discern  in  the 
centre  of  their  soul  this  point,  this  root  of  life,  this  hidden 
spring  where  God  touches  them,  this  double  point,  this 
double  root,  which,  if  I  may  venture  to  say  so,  is  at  the  same 
time  God  and  ourself ;  this  point,  I  say,  where  God  touches 
us,  where  his  light  comes  to  us,  reflects  itself  in  the  soul, 
and  forms,  after  the  reflection  of  the  divine  light,  our 
natural  life,  before  that  reflection,  the  supernatural  life ;  so 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      455 

that,  although  there  is  an  infinite  difference  between  the  two, 
in  practice  they  are  hardly  to  be  distinguished,  since  one  and 
the  same  point,  in  some  sort,  contains  both  the  natural  and 
the  supernatural  ray. 

This  point  of  contact  and  this  divine  touch,  in  so  far  as  the 
soul  reacts  thereon,  are  the  divine  sense,  —  natural  divine 
sense  when  beneath  this  contact  the  soul  feels  itself  ex- 
plicitly and  God  implicitly ;  supernatural  divine  sense  when 
beneath  this  contact  the  soul  is  explicitly  conscious  of  God 
himself,  and  is  only  implicitly  conscious  of  self  in  God, — 
a  twofold  meaning,  which  is,  perhaps,  mingled,  and  varies  in 
the  soul,  let  us  say,  like  the  two  beats  of  the  heart ;  God, 
according  to  our  dogma,  being  ever  present  to  the  soul,  with 
his  double  natural  and  supernatural  aid,  and  varying  his 
gifts  according  to  his  free  bounty,  and  according  to  the  free 
response  of  the  soul. 

Why  do  we  not  at  once  see  the  intellect,  made  for  the  two 
degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible,  capable,  by  its  impulses 
and  its  freedom  of  choice,  beneath  the  twofold  divine  gift,  of 
rising  now  to  the  one  and  now  to  the  other,  according  as  it 
rests  upon  one  or  the  other  side  of  the  hidden  spring,  upon 
the  natural  divine  sense,  or  upon  the  supernatural  divine 
sense,  —  rising,  in  the  first  case,  to  the  immutable  shadows 
of  the  infinite,  the  eternal;  in  the  second,  to  the  infinite, 
the  eternal  itself  ! 

So  that  the  life  of  the  mind,  like  that  of  the  will,  like  that 
of  the  soul,  is  everywhere  twofold,  —  at  the  point  of  departure, 
which  is  the  divine  sense,  either  natural  or  supernatural ;  in 
the  impulse,  which  varies  with  the  point  of  departure ;  and 
in  the  goal,  which  depends  upon  the  point  of  departure  and 
on  the  nature  of  the  impulse,  and  which  is  the  twofold  region 
of  the  divine  intelligible. 

And  the  better  to  understand  this  marvellous  duality, 
comparable  remotely  and  in  a  certain  sense  to  the  duality  of 


456  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF  GOD. 

the  two  natures  of  Christ,  we  should  know  that  the  natural 
man  and  the  supernatural  man  resemble  each  other,  that 
the  natural  man  is,  as  it  were,  the  rough  draught  of  the  su- 
pernatural man,  and  that  to  every  trait  in  the  one,  some  trait 
in  the  other  corresponds. 

The  natural  man  is  the  image  of  God,  and  the  supernatural 
man  is  man  united  to  God, —  it  is  God  entering  into  his  image ; 
God  himself  living  in  his  substantial  reality  in  every  feature 
of  the  image,  bringing  by  his  approach  the  supernatural  di- 
vine sense  into  the  natural  divine  sense,  the  supernatural 
divine  impulse  into  the  natural  impulse  of  the  reason  towards 
the  immutable  and  the  infinite,  and  placing  the  infinite  itself 
in  the  ideas  of  the  infinite. 

We  cannot  better  depict  all  this,  and  better  represent  the 
mystery  of  this  double  life,  than  by  venturing  to  compare 
God,  when  he  animates  man  for  eternal  life,  to  the  prophet 
Elisha  when  he  restored  the  child  to  life :  "  The  prophet," 
says  the  Holy  Scripture,  "  went  up  and  lay  upon  the  child  ; 
he  put  his  mouth  upon  his  mouth,  and  his  eyes  upon  his 
eyes,  and  his  hands  upon  his  hands ;  and  he  stretched  him- 
self upon  the  child ;  and  the  flesh  of  the  child  waxed  warm." l 
So,  too,  God  stoops  down  and  overspreads  man ;  he  puts  his 
mouth  upon  our  mouth,  his  love  and  the  breath  of  his  Holy 
Spirit  upon  our  love ;  he  puts  his  eyes  upon  our  eyes,  his 
intelligence  upon  ours,  and  the  child  of  God  is  born  to  new 
life,  which  is  God  in  him  and  upon  him;  he  is  born  to  eter- 
nal life,  —  that  is  to  say,  to  the  life  which  God  himself 
lives  for  him. 

II. 

Let  us  now  sum  up  our  thought  from  the  theological  point 
of  view,  properly  so  called. 

The  light  of  reason  is  a  natural  gift  of  God,  by  which  man 

1  2  Kings  iv.  34. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     457 

is  man.  The  light  of  faith  is  another  gift,  free>  supernatural, 
radically  distinct  from  the  first,  by  which  God's  goodness 
raises  man  above  his  own  nature. 

In  the  beginning,  God  might  have  left  man  to  his  own 
nature,  without  raising  him,  by  a  higher  gift,  to  participation 
in  the  divine  nature,  to  intuitive  vision  and  possession  of 
eternal  life. 

But,  as  a  fact,  God  chose  to  raise  man  to  this  supernatural 
state ;  he  created  man  to  this  end ;  he  created  him  to  raise 
him  to  intuitive  vision.  From  this  voluntary  and  wholly 
gratuitous  will  of  God,  there  results  for  man  the  necessity 
that  he  shall  attain  to  intuitive  vision,  if  he  is  to  reach  his 
final  perfection,  and  the  end  for  which  he  was  created. 

God,  according  to  our  dogma,  desires  to  lead  all  men  to 
this  end,  and  gives  his  grace  to  all,  in  order  to  lead  them 
thither.  "  The  effects  of  this  will,"  says  Saint  Thomas,  "  are 
the  order  itself  of  nature  directed  towards  this  end,  and  all 
the  impulses,  whether  natural  or  supernatural,  which  inces- 
santly urge  us  thither."  "  God,"  as  Saint  Augustine  teaches, 
"never  ceases  to  address  the  rational  creature,  to  the  end 
that  it  may  attain  this  goal."  And  therefore  Fenelon  is  jus- 
tified in  saying :  "  I  hold,  with  Saint  Augustine,  that  God 
gives  to  every  creature  a  first  germ  of  secret  grace,  which  is 
imperceptibly  blended  with  reason,  and  which  prepares  man 
to  pass  gradually  from  reason  to  faith."  But  although  this 
germ  of  grace,  which  prepares  the  way  for  faith,  if  we  offer 
no  obstacle  to  it,  may  be  blended  with  reason,  it  remains 
radically  distinct,  as  the  diamond,  set  in  gold,  remains  dis- 
tinct from  the  metal  which  holds  it,  or  as  a  seed,  sowed  in 
the  earth,  is  not  the  earth. 

There  is  in  reason  a  natural  and  continual  aid  from  God, 
which  is,  as  it  were,  the  primary  cause  of  reason ;  and  there 
is,  mingled  with  reason,  a  principle  radically  distinct  from 
reason,  a  germ  of  grace,  which,  on  the  one  hand,  favors  its 


458  GUIDE  TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

natural  growth,  and  which,  on  the  other,  gradually  prepares 
it  to  rise,  beyond  itself,  to  faith.  But  the  mind  can  no  more 
pass  from  reason  to  faith,  by  a  natural  growth,  than  the 
finite,  by  increasing,  can  become  infinite.  There  is  always 
the  whole  gulf  of  the  infinite  between  finite  and  infinite.  So, 
too,  there  is  always  the  infinity  of  God  between  reason  and 
faith.  God  alone  can  fill  up  this  gulf  by  imparting  his  own 
light,  which  is  himself,  which  is  the  only  principle  and  the 
only  formal  motive  of  faith. 

Now,  God  desires  to  fill  up  this  gulf.  He  labors  to  do  so 
by  his  grace,  by  his  sun  which  he  causes  to  shine  upon  the 
wicked  as  well  as  upon  the  good.  But  the  depraved  man 
opposes  an  obstacle.  He  refuses  the  benefit  which  is  offered 
to  him ;  often  even,  by  his  own  fault,  far  from  allowing  him- 
self to  be  raised  higher  than  man,  in  the  supernatural  light, 
he  does  not  even  stretch  his  intellect  to  the  natural  truths 
which  it  should  grasp.  He  sometimes  rejects  the  natural 
help  of  God,  which  stimulates  and  sustains  his  reason  in  its 
proper  sphere,  as  he  also  rejects  the  higher  help  which  opens 
a  new  world  to  his  intelligence.  He  rejects  reason  as  he 
rejected  faith,  and  he  applies  his  inverted  mind  to  the  mon- 
strous negation  of  the  very  principles  of  reason. 

Doubtless  there  is  a  medium  between  scepticism  and 
faith,  between  the  supernatural  life  and  the  animal  life. 
And  yet  the  minds  which  seek  or  think  they  seek  the  truth, 
and  which  reject  the  supernatural  truth  offered  by  grace 
and  revelation,  usually  abandon  at  last  the  worship  of  all 
truth,  the  effort  towards  wisdom,  to  plunge  again  in  the 
senses,  and  attach  themselves  to  earth. 

It  is  a  deep  fault  in  reason  to  reject  the  supernatural 
light  of  faith.  It  is  contrary  to  the  duty  of  reason.  Does 
not  reason,  by  its  own  natural  lights,  see  its  limitations  and 
its  imperfection  ?  Is  it  not  forced  to  admit  that  it  does  not 
see  the  essence  and  substance  of  the  True  ?  Does  it  not 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      459 

demonstrate  that  the  substantial  truth  is  God  himself?  Can 
it  maintain  that,  when  it  conceives  of  the  absolute  truths 
which  form  its  domain,  it  sees  very  God  in  himself,  and 
that  it  has  an  intuitive  vision  of  God?  By  what  right,  then, 
should  it  deny  that  there  may  be  another  light  superior  to 
its  own  light  ?  How  should  it  maintain  that  God  cannot 
raise  the  created  intellect  to  the  vision  of  the  substance  and 
essence  of  the  True,  to  the  intuitive  vision  of  God  ? 

More  yet.  Created  intellect  has,  in  fact,  a  desire  for  the  in- 
tuitive vision  of  God.  So  soon  as  a  mind  knows  that  God  is,  it 
desires  to  see  God,  as  Saint  Thomas  constantly  affirms.  This 
desire  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  the  rational  creature,  also 
says  Saint  Thomas ;  followed  by  almost  all  theology.  Now, 
this  desire,  —  this  negative  desire,  I  grant  you,  a  desire  caused 
by  privation  and  regret, —  however  indirect,  blind,  and  ineffi- 
cacious it  may  be  in  itself,  is  yet  sufficient  to  prove  that  our 
intelligence,  since  it  has  this  regret,  will  never  find  its  per- 
fect rest  and  its  full  perfection  save  in  the  higher  light 
which  will  give  it  the  sight  of  God.  But  whether  this 
desire  be,  in  man,  essentially  natural,  or  only  innate, 
whether  it  result  necessarily  from  the  peculiar  nature  of 
the  rational  intelligence,  as  almost  all  Scholastics  maintain, 
or  whether  it  be  merely  an  impulse  superadded  by  God; 
whether  it  be  contained  in  the  fact  of  creation,  or  be  derived 
from  God's  wish  to  raise  every  intelligence  to  intuitive 
vision,  and  thus  be  what  Saint  Thomas  calls  "  the  natural 
order  directed  towards  the  supernatural  end,"  —  whether 
this  superadded  impulse  should  be,  in  its  turn,  called  natural 
or  supernatural,  matters  little.  As  in  any  case  this  impulse 
from  God  is  mingled  with  the  reason,  it  always  results  that 
reason,  sound  reason,  can  demonstrate  the  possibility  of  the 
supernatural  light,  the  intuitive  vision,  and  prove  its  neces- 
sity, if  the  mind  is  to  attain  its  final  perfection  and  reach 
its  rest. 


460  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

Lastly,  in  our  present  state,  where  our  reason  is  wounded, 
as  well  as  our  will,  our  reason  itself  thoroughly  understands 
and  demonstrates  its  own  weaknesses.  Tt  demonstrates  its 
impotence  to  conquer  its  entire  domain,  and,  weak  as  it  is,  to 
stretch  forth  and  grasp  the  very  truths  which,  were  it  stronger, 
it  might  discover.  It  reveals,  moreover,  its  aberrations  and 
its  constant  errors.  It  thus  proves  the  necessity  of  a  superior 
help,  and  it  confirms  the  words  of  Fdnelon:  "I  reckon  upon 
grace  alone  to  guide  my  reason  within  the  limits  of  reason." 
It  therefore  requires  the  other  light,  not  only  to  be  raised 
to  its  highest  perfection,  but  even  to  be  healed  and  attain 
its  proper  and  natural  perfection. 

And  this  necessity  for  supernatural  light  to  give  the 
rational  creature  his  final  or  his  relative  perfection,  comes 
not  only  from  the  wounds  and  weaknesses  of  reason  in  our 
present  state,  it  also  comes  from  the  nature  of  created  rea- 
son. The  finite  mind  naturally  sees  only  in  part ;  the 
sum  total  escapes  it ;  it  knows  the  whole  of  nothing ;  it 
could  no  more  attain  to  the  whole  of  its  intelligibles,  or  to  the 
absolute  totality  of  a  single  idea,  than  a  convergent  mathe- 
matical series  can,  by  development,  attain  its  limit.  Before 
such  a  series  can  be  complete,  we  must  add  the  infinite  to 
it  by  hypothesis.  So,  too,  before  the  finite  mind  can  attain 
to  all  the  truth  of  its  degree,  it  must  be  united  to  the  infinite 
mind. 

But  let  us  go  back  from  theology  to  philosophy. 

III. 

Either  philosophy  demonstrates  nothing,  or  else  all  that 
precedes  proves  that  there  are,  for  man,  two  regions  in  the 
world  of  intelligibility,  as  Plato  expresses  it ;  that  there  are 
for  our  intelligence  two  degrees  of  the  divine  intelligible,  as 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  says. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      461 

All  philosophers  of  the  first  order  teach  this  ;  all  Catholic 
theology  professes  it;  all  Christian  dogma  presupposes  it; 
all  men  feel  it  and  can  see  it  in  themselves ;  the  whole  his- 
tory of  the  human  mind  explains  it,  and  rests  upon  that 
basis. 

This,  I  say,  is  proved,  because  all  those  familiar  with  the 
human  mind  have  seen  it,  and  because  you  see  it  yourself, 
if  you  have  understood  what  goes  before. 

There  are  two  degrees  of  total  wisdom.  Plato  calls  them 
the  two  regions  of  the  intelligible  world,  one  of  which  is 
that  of  divine  phantasms,  shadows  of  that  which  is ;  the 
other  is  the  intelligible  itself  in  its  divine  essence,  —  the 
Sun,  whence  shadows  and  images  come,  and  which  is 
the  supreme  Good  viewed  in  itself. 

Plato  speaks  of  it  again  when  he  speaks  of  those  truths, 
the  most  important  of  all,  —  which  it  is  impossible  or  very 
difficult  to  know  in  this  life,  yet  which  it  is  possible  to 
know  if  some  one  teaches  them,  but  which  none  can  teach 
unless  he  be  sent  by  God  himself. 

Aristotle  distinguishes  these  two  degrees  when  he  says 
that  there  is  in  man,  besides  the  life  of  feeling,  the  rational 
life ;  and  besides  the  rational  life,  the  contemplative  life  of 
pure  intellect,  which  is  like  another  soul  superadded  to 
the  soul ;  which  is  not  essential  to  the  soul,  which  may  be 
separated  from  it,  which  comes  to  us  from  without,  which 
is  supernatural  rather  than  human,  —  divine,  which  is  very 
God.  Aristole's  marvellous  texts  on  this  head  may  be 
recalled. 

Saint  Augustine  declares  that  there  is  between  rational, 
certain,  and  absolute  truths,  and  the  intelligible  majesty 
of  God,  the  same  distance  that  there  is  between  heaven 
and  earth,  between  darkness  and  light.  He  repeats  the 
very  words  of  Plato,  but  develops  and  deepens  their  mean- 
ing. Of  the  two  lights,  the  two  forms  of  vision,  he  calls 


462  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

one  outward  (extraria),  the  other  inward  (intraria) ;  of 
the  two  knowledges,  he  calls  one  evening  light  (vesper- 
tina),  and  the  other  morning  light  (matutina).  All  vision 
possessed  by  created  beings,  the  vision  which  our  soul  has  of 
itself,  beneath  the  light  of  God,  is  this  light  akin  to  shadow ; 
and  only  the  vision  of  God  himself  is  the  light  of  day. 

Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  names  them  THE  Two  ORDERS  OF 
THE  DIVINE  INTELLIGIBLE  (duplici  veritate  divinorum  intel- 
ligibilium),  and  his  two  Sums,  or  Summaries,  are  these  two 
orders  of  the  divine  intelligible  treated  separately. 

He  asserts  that  reason  has  two  terms  and  two  spheres  of 
action,  —  one  which  displays  to  it  the  natural  light,  and  the 
other  which  opens  to  it  the  gift  of  supernatural  light.  He 
also  calls  the  lower  region  the  region  of  shadows  (natura  in- 
tellectualis  adumbrata) ;  the  one  is,  he  says,  a  specular  vision 
(specularis),  the  other  is  direct  vision  of  the  essence  (visio 
per  essentiam). 

There  are  therefore  these  two  degrees  of  the  intelligible, 
corresponding  to  what  Christian  theology  calls  the  natural 
order  and  the  supernatural  order,  —  the  order  of  reason  and 
the  order  of  faith. 

Now,  is  it  certain,  from  the  experience  of  each  of  us,  as 
well  as  from  the  whole  history  of  the  human  mind,  that  the 
first  of  these  two  degrees  seeks,  regrets,  and  desires  the  other, 
and  that,  the  higher  a  mind  rises  in  this  first  region,  de- 
velops its  reason  and  lifts  its  vision,  the  better  it  under- 
stands that  its  vision  is  partial,  and  that  what  it  sees  is  only 
the  shadow,  but  not  the  essence  and  the  substance  of  truth  ? 
Is  it  certain  that  the  natural  light  of  reason,  in  proportion  as 
it  grows,  produces  a  more  and  more  ardent  thirst  ?  But 
thirst  for  what,  if  not  for  the  truth  itself,  essential  and  total, 
substantial  and  living,  whose  likeness,  ever  more  distinct, 
whose  rays,  ever  more  numerous  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul, 
kindle  there  a  desire  for  the  reality,  the  totality  ? 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      463 

This  is  the  legitimate  conclusion  of  sound  reason,  of  in- 
creasing reason,  the  sourse  of  true  philosophy.  Sluggish, 
arrested  reason  knows  it  not,  and  gives  birth  to  that  lan- 
guishing, sterile,  and  changeable  philosophy  which  revolves 
upon  its  own  axis  without  advancing.  Depraved  reason 
denies  it  and  utterly  rejects  it ;  but  instantly  reverses  itself, 
turns  against  itself,  denies  and  destroys  itself;  and  its  name 
is  sophistry,  the  suicide  of  reason. 

Are  these,  or  are  they  not,  the  fundamental  features  of  the 
history  of  the  human  mind,  and  of  the  classes  into  which 
minds  may  be  divided  ? 

This  settled,  Christians  are  those  who  believe  that  the 
second  region  of  the  intelligible  world  will  be  given,  and 
that  it  is  indeed  given  even  now,  in  principle,  by  faith  in 
Christ,  divine  faith  which  implants  within  us,  as  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas  says,  following  Saint  Paul,  the  essence  and 
substance  of  the  truth,  in  its  supernatural  germ,  developable 
in  eternity.1 

As  for  true  philosophers  who  are  not  Christians,  —  I  do 
not  refer  to  the  sophists,  nor  to  the  learned  who  devote  them- 
selves to  idle  philosophy,  —  theirs  are  necessarily  minds 
which  wait,  seek,  desire,  and  regret ;  which  suspect  and  con- 
jecture the  Sun  whose  shadows  they  see,  the  images  and 
abstract  lineaments  of  whose  essence  they  perceive. 

For  if  it  be  so,  this  is  what  we  feel  it  our  duty  to  offer  all 
those,  Christians  or  not,  who  have  within  them  the  philo- 
sophic germ,  —  I  mean  by  this  the  effort  towards  total 
wisdom. 

We  would  offer  them,  above  all,  in  the  practical  order,  as 
the  daily  law  of  their  life,  these  words  of  Christ :  "  Every 
one  that  doeth  evil  hateth  the  light ;  he  that  doeth  truth, 
cometh  to  the  light ;  "  and  these  others :  "  Pray  without 
ceasing,  and  weary  not  in  so  doing ; "  that  is  to  say,  we 

1  2a2ae,  q.  iv.  1. 


464  GUIDE  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF   GOD. 

should  always  unite  our  free  force  and  an  active  co-opera- 
tion to  the  permanent  attraction  of  the  desirable  and  the 
intelligible. 

It  is  most  evident  that  this  continued  inward  effort  and 
this  persevering  prayer,  combined  with  a  struggle  against  all 
evil  and  an  attempt  at  all  good,  is  the  practical  method  to 
attain  the  truth. 

But,  moreover,  in  the  speculative  order,  we  would  give 
this  counsel :  it  is  a  new  way  to  study  the  formulas  of 
Christian  faith. 

Usually  men  study  them  controversially,  from  without, 
and  from  the  circumference,  in  certain  details,  never  as  a 
whole;  and  attention  is  fixed  far  less  on  the  dogma  itself 
and  its  simple  statement,  than  on  certain  human  and  very 
imperfect  and  incomplete  considerations  of  it  given  by  some 
preacher  or  writer. 

Is  this  the  way  to  acquire,  I  do  not  say  faith,  but  merely 
a  knowledge  of  faith  and  an  understanding  of  its  authentic 
statements  ? 

Behold,  now,  the  inverse  process,  from  which  we  believe  we 
may  expect  much  fruit  for  many  souls. 

Take  the  formulas  of  the  faith  as  they  are  presented  by 
the  Church.  Add  certain  of  the  words  of  Christ  upon  which 
these  formulas  rest. 

If  you  are  a  Christian,  you  believe  that  these  are  principles 
of  divine  truth,  capable  of  development  in  the  divine  light. 

If  you  are  not  a  Christian,  you  may  doubt  this,  but  you 
have  no  reason  to  deny  it. 

Now,  what  would  you  do  if,  holding  in  my  hand  a  few 
grains  of  dust,  I  said  to  you :  "  Here  are  germs.  They 
imply  plants  and  contain  fruits." 

If  you  doubted  it,  there  would  clearly  be  no  way  to  get 
at  the  truth  but  to  intrust  those  germs  to  the  earth,  and  to 
summon  that  dust  to  germinate,  and  to  show  to  all  eyes  that 
which  previously  they  could  not  see. 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.     465 

Do  the  same.  Root  these  little  grains,  these  formulas  of 
faith,  firmly,  immovably  in  your  memory.  "  Do  not  despise 
memory,  it  is  the  treasury  of  gifts,"  says  Bossuet;  it  is  a 
soil  which  not  only  preserves,  but  which  develops.  Root,  I 
say,  all  these  germs  in  the  depths  of  your  mind  ;  then  dwell 
with  them.  Let  the  changes  of  life,  its  seasons,  its  droughts, 
its  trials,  its  griefs,  its  weaknesses,  its  hopes,  its  joys,  and  its 
sun,  act  upon  those  seeds.  Keep  that  attempt  at  a  harvest 
alive  by  the  ferment  of  your  mind,  by  the  vital  fluid  which: 
nourishes  it,  by  the  light  in  which  it  unfolds.  Compare  all 
these  affirmations  with  its  wants,  its  regrets,  its  doubts,  its 
questions,  its  expectations,  and  its  conjectures. 

Let  these  germs  be  cherished  by  those  hidden  forces  which 
make  everything  grow  which  lives  in  man,  and  which  are 
born,  like  a  sort  of  electricity,  of  the  free  movement  of:  the 
soul  towards  the  universal  attraction  of  God  ;  in  other  words, 
pray  without  ceasing,  and  weary  not  in  so  doing. 

Let  not  heart  and  will  become  paralyzed,  but  act  faithfully 
under  the  influence  of  this  holy  and  infallible  law  :  "  Every 
one  that  doeth  evil,  hateth  the  light ;  he  that  doeth,  truth, 
cometh  to  the  light." 

Do  this,  and  you  yourself  shall  see  the  gerrns  swell,  and 
whether  Jesus  was  wrong  in  saying :  "  The  word  of  God  is  a 
seed ;  if  it  falls  into  good  ground,  it  bringeth  forth  some  an 
hundred-fold,  some  sixty,  some  thirty." 

Whether  you  be  a  Christian  or  not,  this  experiment  should 
be  made.  If  you  are  not  a  Christian,  you  will  have  a  chance 
to  find  that  other  sphere  of  intelligence,  that  heaven  of  truth, 
which  your  mind  longs  for  and  pursues,  and  that  total  phi- 
losophy which  you  know  that  you  do  not  possess. 

If  you  are  a  Christian,  you  believe  that  these  are  germs  of 
eternal  light,  and  the  highest  principles  of  real  philosophy 
and  complete  wisdom. 

Try  it,  therefore. 

30 


466  GUIDE   TO   THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD. 

This  experiment,  made  under  the  requisite  conditions,  may, 
by  God's  grace,  give  philosophy  to  souls  which  have  only 
faith  ;  faith  to  those  who  have  only  philosophy. 

It  is  the  first  labor  to  be  undertaken  by  the  faith  which 
seeks  understanding,  and  by  the  understanding  which  seeks 
faith. 

Let  the  minds  which,  having  reached  the  term  of  human 
light,  find  it  pale,  partial,  expiring,  greatly  blended  with 
shadows ;  who  recognize  that  the  flying  object  of  their  pur- 
suit is  but  the  light  of  evening,  which  grows  dim  and  van- 
ishes, and  the  substance  of  which  is  only  darkness,  —  let 
these,  I  say,  add  to  their  mind  the  principles  of  what  Saint 
Augustine  calls  morning  light. 

I  am  well  aware  that  at  first  these  principles  will  strike 
them  as  even  more  obscure  than  that  very  daylight  which  is 
insufficient  for  them,  and  that,  accustomed  to  what  Descartes, 
I  think,  somewhere  calls  the  rude  evidence  of  geometry,  they 
will  see  nought  but  thick  night  in  these  germs  of  celestial 
light.  But  let  them  fully  understand  this,  and  meditate  on 
this  comparison. 

We,  too,  call  the  absence  of  our  sun  night.  But  what  does 
the  sun  show  us  ?  It  shows  us  the  earth  and  itself.  When 
it  has  vanished,  what  do  we  see  ?  At  first  we  no  longer  see 
earth,  or  sun,  or  anything.  But  patience  ;  let  night  advance, 
and  behold  !  The  stars  appear  one  by  one ;  the  entire  vault 
is  peopled  -,  the  sky  is  filled  with  rays,  movements,  and  scin- 
tillations, as  it  were  with  eyes  waking  and  imploring  our 
gaze.  We  see  the  heaven  which  the  sun  concealed.  So 
that,  to  any  one  who  wished  to  see  the  whole  heaven,  it  was 
well  that  the  sun  went  away. 

But,  I  confess,  all  these  stars  still  seem  to  you  mere  drops 
of  lustre  upon  the  night.  All  together  do  not  equal  one  sun- 
beam. And  yet  what  have  we  before  our  eyes  ?  We  have 
before  us  the  immense  universe  of  suns,  in  which  our  own 


RELATIONS  BETWEEN  REASON  AND  FAITH.      467 

sun  is  but  a  point,  —  a  point  in  which  the  earth  is  but  a 
fraction.  Every  imperceptible  point  of  that  luminous  dust 
is  a  sun  like  ours,  surrounded  by  a  hundred  living  earths,  as 
great  or  greater  than  our  own.  Day,  therefore,  showed  us  a 
point ;  night  shows  us  immensity. 

May  I  venture  to  say  that  this  is  one  of  the  divine  reasons 
for  the  setting  of  the  sun  ?  If  the  sun  reigns  and  then  dis- 
appears by  turns,  it  is  because  God  desires  that  besides  the 
earth,  man  should  also  see  the  heaven. 

It  is  precisely  the  same  with  the  obscurities  of  faith,  rela- 
tively to  the  daylight  of  reason. 

This  is  why  our  dogma  teaches  that  reason,  like  the  sun, 
should  rule  and  should  surrender  by  turns :  should  rule  over 
all  the  earth,  and  surrender  in  the  sight  of  heaven.  Its  reign 
gives  it  a  world ;  its  surrender  gives  it  immensity,  in  which 
the  world  is  but  a  point. 

Let  no  one  therefore  be  alarmed  at  the  obscurities  of  faith 
or  the  surrenders  of  the  mind. 

As  for  Christians,  they  must  allow  me,  after  the  example 
of  Saint  Augustine,  to  exhort  them  eagerly  to  seek  light  and 
love  understanding.1 

Learn  to  see  in  the  light  of  intelligibility  what  you  possess 
firmly  through  faith.2  In  this  time  of  great  decay  and  lan- 
guor of  reason  and  faith,  you  who  have  the  assured  principles 
of  universal  light,  why  do  you  bury  them,  and  not  display, 
by  culture  and  effort,  by  constant  labor  of  intellect  and  soul, 
its  rays,  its  colors,  its  perfumes,  its  beauties,  and  its  fruits  ? 
You  who  believe  beforehand  that  every  one  of  those  drops  of 
light  is  a  sun,  an  animating  principle  of  worlds ;  you  who 
bear  within  you  that  starry  heaven  of  faith ;  you  are  a 
heaven  greater  than  the  visible  heaven,  —  why  do  you  not 
seek  to  become  more  distinctly  luminous,  for  the  glory  of  God 
and  the  salvation  of  your  brothers  ? 

1  Ut  fidem  tuam  ad  amorem  intelligentice  cohorter. 

2  Ut  quod  fidei  fivmitate  jam  tenes,  etiam  rationis  luce  conspicias. 


468  GUIDE   TO   THE  KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD. 

What  can  excuse  you  and  dispense  you  from  an  effort  to 
attain  perfect  day  and  increasing  light  ?  Is  it  age  or  sex  ? 
Hear  Saint  Augustine,  addressing  his  mother,  when,  leaning 
by  her  side  from  that  window  which  we  may  still  see  at 
Ostia,  gazing  at  the  immense  ocean  and  the  starry  heaven, 
and  comparing  them  to  the  heaven  of  the  soul,  he  said  to 
that  beloved  mother :  "  Mother,  I  implore  you,  do  not  be 
terrified,  or  arrested  in  your  task,  by  the  wilderness  of  knowl- 
edges which  seem  requisite.  One  may  choose,  from  all  these, 
the  true  points,  few  but  fruitful ;  difficult,  doubtless,  to  many 
minds,  —  but  to  you,  mother,  whose  mind  seems  new  to  me 
every  day,  and  whose  soul,  whether  from  the  advance  of 
years,  or  whether  from  its  wondrous  temperance,  wholly 
freed  from  the  deceptions  of  the  world  and  from  the  hard 
servitude  of  the  senses,  has  power  to  grow  and  rise  mightily 
within  itself,  —  to  you,  beloved  mother,  these  things  will  be 
as  easy  as  they  would  be  hard  to  the  sluggish  understanding 
of  all  those  souls  who  live  so  miserably." 

It  was  therefore  to  the  weakness  of  sex  and  the  decline 
of  life  that  the  great  doctor  addressed  this  testimony  and 
this  exhortation. 

We  venture,  therefore,  to  transmit  to  the  readers  of  these 
pages,  be  they  who  they  may,  that  same  exhortation. 

But  where  now  among  us  are  the  Christian  souls  whose 
converse  is  thus  in  heaven,  that  is,  in  the  search  after  wisdom 
and  truth  ?  Where  are  the  souls  whose  pleasures,  wholly 
intellectual  and  cordial  in  their  nature,  lie  in  pursuing  and 
gathering  up  the  traces  of  God,  as  Saint  Augustine  did,  in 
the  inner  history  of  the  soul,  in  that  of  the  world  and  of 
empires,  in  the  spectacle  of  nature,  in  the  history  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  in  the  confessions  of  his  life,  in  music  and  in  let- 
ters, in  numbers  and  in  astronomy,  to  the  end  that  he  might 
refer  all  these  things  to  the  eternal  model,  and  confront  every 
thought  with  the  word  of  God,  with  the  definite  dogma 


DELATIONS  BETWEEN  UK  AS  ON  AND  FAITH.      469 

borne  in  his  memory,  with  God  carried  in  his  heart  and 
his  faith  ?  Where  are  the  stern  abstinences  of  Saint  Monica 
in  regard  to  the  sorceries  of  the  earth  ?  Who  suspects  the 
ecstasies  of  which  our  intemperances  deprive  us?  Where 
are  the  souls  ever  new,  and  growing,  through  their  search 
after  wisdom,  from  childhood  unto  death  ?  And  who  sus- 
pects the  floods  of  light  and  true  love  which  would  burst 
forth  from  Christian  souls  for  the  salvation  and  happiness  of 
mankind,  at  the  cost  of  a  little  effort  ? 


THE   END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


LIBRARY  USE 

JAN  2    195"; 
REC'D  LD 

JAN 


0  3  2000 


LD  21-1007n-6,'56 
(B9311slO)476 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


